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orty dollars. That’s what I cleared last year, after taxes, recycling mailing materials, watching where every dollar goes so when each roll of film, computer repairs, rent, and toner you have to spend less time making money, just to spend it. FF cartridges were counted against the money we get from On the way to finishing this mag, I realized that I feel a lot less subscriptions, distributors, and advertisers. Forty dollars. alone than I ever have. You see, Razorcake’s not about who or Curiously, that was also the exact amount I spent on clothing for what’s going to be the next big thing. It’s about what record’s the entire year. going to be on our turntables the longest, the books that will charge Under all this, you may say, “You’ve got a fancy cover. You’re through and stain our brains, the friends – newfound and longtime doing fine. You’re exaggerating.” Annette, our super-nice – who will sleep on our floors. accountant who specializes with musicians and artists, clicked the Under all that, something’s growing. It’s loose but it’s tangible. buttons on her desk calculator. Her fingers quickly tapped. The A community – based around music and the ideas that fuel that LED green numbers did not lie. “Forty bucks, Todd.” I glanced at music – but it’s much deeper than that. I can’t tell you how rad it is the red thread holding together some ratty pants that had survived a for twenty of our contributors to come together, bowl, and just get scooter crash from four or five years back, then I smiled and to chill out and let loose in Vegas. If a good part of a hotel room’s thought, “That’s the best forty bucks I’ve ever earned.” incidentals gets thrown through a window and one of us is wearing Can it be? Instead of going to work nine to five, five days a an 18-pack beer carton with a Suicidal brim flipped up, all the week, slaving for someone to make more money off of me, I lived better. an entire year – seeing the Jewws and The Epoxies rock the fuck Dude, there is no safety net. You gotta take advantage of shit out of almost empty clubs, and Toys That Kill more than any other before it slips away. Isn’t it just a little bit cruel that your mind and band, then travelling to Maine to spend more time with my special body are always for sale to someone else? lady friend’s family and trying my hand at candle pin bowling – As this issue came to a close, I also realized how many new and I didn’t have to suck any corporate cock or do any job I didn’t people were involved in getting this together. This full-color feel dirty after doing? Poor, tired, and struggling? Sure. Alive? cover’s a huge thank you to Chris Francis, a guy I got to know More so. better while skating a ditch. He just happened to be an amazing Kooky and ironic, I know, but a little bit of capitalism – $3 for stencil artist. Whodathunkit? At first, I just thought he did some this mag, $10 for an LP of your new favorite band, $5 for a nice wheel-screeching laybacks. basement or backyard show – can be the flu-like antidote to the Let go of the stupid stuff you don’t think you can live without. larger ills that surround us. Expect nothing. Make something yourself. Bring your friends. You know what? It’s almost more about working not to spend If you do it right, it won’t cost that much money, but you’ll still money – changing your oil yourself, finding the cheapest long have your own life... and maybe forty bucks at the end of it. distance, not buying stupid shit that’ll break or rust too easily, -Todd
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• Sean
Play It Sticky www.razorcake.com and PO Box 42129, Los Angeles, CA 90042 Table of Contents ***** Sean Carswell ...... A Monkey to Ride the Dog ...... pg. 4 Art ...... ‘Lil Beez’s Pick-a-nic ...... pg. 9 Ayn Imperato ...... 94103 ...... pg. 10 Gary Hornberger ...... Squeeze My Horn ...... pg. 12 Rich Mackin ...... The Twisted Balloon ...... pg. 14 Rev. Nørb ...... Love, Nørb ...... pg. 16 Designated Dale ...... I’m Against It ...... pg. 22 Nardwuar The Human Serviette ...... Who Are You? ...... pg. 24 The Rhythm Chicken ...... The Dinghole Reports ...... pg. 26 Seth Swaaley...... Swinging Door Conversations ...... pg. 28 Maddy ...... Shiftless When Idle...... pg. 32 Shawn Granton ...... Joe Strummer ...... pg. 33 ***** Joe Strummer ..Remembrances by Eric Rife and Jessica Disobedience.. pg. 34 Pilot Scott Tracy ...... Interview by Todd Taylor ...... pg. 42 The GC5 ...... Interview by Sean Carswell ...... pg. 48 The Sharp Ease...... Interview by Chris Ziegler ...... pg. 56 400 Blows...... Interview by Bradley Williams ...... pg. 60 Velvet Hammer ...... Article by Bradley Williams ...... pg. 64 ***** Kat Jetson ...... Ping Pong, Ladies, Beer ...... pg. 69 Dan Monick ...... Make Out Party Tonight ...... pg. 71 Record Reviews ...... More Hair, Fewer Chins, Zero Power Ballads ...... pg. 72 Zine Reviews ...... Read, Resist, Shred ...... pg. 96 Video Reviews ...... STL 2K, Very Respectable...... pg. 99 Book Reviews ...... James Carr, Bad Ass Motherfucker ...... pg. 100
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Sean Carswell
I saw him bang his hand on the podium and say, “We will not become another United States.” And the Canadian parliament erupted in applause. I felt so embarrassed.
Wear Down Iraq then forget it.” our freedom of speech. He said that people could I turned on my computer within two minutes I’m not saying one culture is better than the speak recklessly and cause physical harm. For of crawling out of bed, and I checked my email other. I’m just saying that I live in a western cul- example, a person could walk into a crowded before doing anything else that morning. I never ture and I have to accept that. And normally, I theater and yell, “Fire!” This would cause a gen- do this. I usually let email wait as long as possi- prefer to write columns that deal with principles eral panic, and people may get hurt. So your ble. Tomorrow’s usually soon enough. But rather than facts because Razorcake only comes freedom of speech includes everything but the something compelled me to check it first thing out every two months, and facts are only valid right to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater, in a that morning, so before I peed or got myself for so long, and the current socio-political cli- manner of speaking. But I disagree with even something to eat or drink, I had an email from a mate changes so quickly that a fact-filled col- that. The way I figure it, if you’re in a dark the- Razorcake reader staring me in the face. In his umn could be obsolete before it reaches the ink- ater and someone screams “fire!” and you don’t letter, he had a long list of criticisms about my stained fingers of our readers. But fuck all that. take a second to look around for flames (which recent columns. He noticed that, for about the We may or may not be at war with Iraq by the should be pretty easy to spot) or at least sniff a past six months, all of my columns had fights in time you read this, obsolescence may or may not little to try to smell smoke, then it’s your own them and all of them were pretty much be right around the corner by the time you read fault for panicking. By the same token, if you metaphors for war. And I was glad for this. it, but I’m gonna wrestle with the facts sur- see “Terrorism Alert: High!” on your television Because most people who read my columns and rounding the war in Iraq anyway. So here goes. screen every day and don’t try to look beyond talk to me about them just say, “Is that true?” and your TV before supporting a war in Iraq, then then are horribly disappointed when I tell them, Why Fight for Freedom When It’s Free? it’s probably your own fault for panicking. “Yes, it’s true. It’s a metaphor.” You always hear people say that we enjoy Words are just words. It’s actions that harm peo- Anyway, this one reader picked up on this this freedom because someone fought a war for ple. Opinions are just opinions. You don’t have and he picked up on my whole anti-war under- it. What I want to know is which war got us to believe them. And I support people saying as tone and he took the time to write this whole which freedoms? How did, say, the mass slaugh- much crazy shit as possible because, the more long, detailed letter about why I was full of shit. ter of two million Vietnamese people from 1964 crazy shit you hear, the better you become at rec- I really appreciate that. I’m not being sarcastic. I to 1975 help strengthen the free press in the ognizing it as crazy shit. And when you become really do appreciate it. It made me think. United States? How did eleven million dead on better at recognizing crazy shit, you make better Since it was too early to think, I went the battlefields of Europe in World War I grant decisions. So, logically speaking, if people are through all my morning rituals. I went into the me the freedom of speech? How is my life any free to say whatever they want, no matter how bathroom and took a leak and washed the crust more free now that the US government has crazy it is, then people end up making better out of my eyes and stared at myself in the mirror killed tens of thousands of Afghan civilians – decisions in the end. That’s why freedom of only long enough to convince myself that I without finding Osama bin Laden or halting ter- speech is important. So let’s tie freedom of could go one more day without bathing. I went rorism in any way – than it was before the US speech in with World War I and see where into the kitchen and made toast and iced tea and invaded Afghanistan? I know there’s not literal there’s a literal connection. sat down and ate it and read a zine while I ate. I connection from one to the other, but how is In 1917, the United States began drafting played two seven inches. I put on my cleanest there any connection at all? young men into the military service to fight in dirty pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Then, I sat down First off, let’s examine the freedom of World War I. Then, like now, a lot of people to think about things. speech, because it’s the most obvious freedom. opposed the draft. The Sixty-Fifth Congress First off, I started to understand where this The guys who wrote the Constitution thought opposed the people who opposed the draft, so reader was coming from. I realize that that the freedom of speech was so important that they passed a law called The Espionage Act. metaphors are not the easiest way to communi- they made it the first thing in the Bill of Rights. When you read The Espionage Act, it reads like cate to people in western cultures. People in Freedom of speech is the easiest to examine a fairly benign document. Basically, it just says western cultures want facts, not principles. because no one can cause any physical harm to that anyone who obtains information regarding When the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu says that anyone else simply by speaking. If someone lis- the national defense and uses that information to water will always wear down a rock, people in tens to you and acts upon what you tell him to injure the United States or to help a foreign eastern cultures understand this to mean that do, then that action can cause harm to someone nation will be fined up to $10,000 and sentenced steady perseverance will always break down else. But the speech never causes harm. If I tell to up to twenty years in prison. The act goes on even the most resistant force. That substantial you, “Kill President George W. Bush,” then I to define what type of information they’re lifestyle changes come through patience and cause no harm to Bush. If you go and kill him restricting: “information concerning any vessel, quiet but steady determination. That you don’t because I told you to, then I still cause no harm aircraft, work of defense, navy yard, naval sta- have to be the biggest or the strongest, you just to Bush. You cause harm to Bush because you tion, submarine base, coaling station, fort, bat- have to carve out your own way in the world. killed him. Now, I know you wouldn’t do that (I tery, torpedo station, dockyard,” etc. It’s a pretty When people in western cultures read Lao Tzu, never would’ve written that sentence if I thought long list, and when you initially read The they say, “Doesn’t that all depend on the rate in anyone would kill the president just because I Espionage Act, it seems pretty reasonable. No which the water flows and the density of the told him to) because you’d have to be an idiot to country would want any of its citizens selling rock? Do you have a scientific formula to prove kill a president, and because you know that, and information about naval stations and torpedo this? Which particle of water am I supposed to because you’re free to make your own decisions stations to that country’s enemies. I can see why be in this scenario? Because if I’m one of the and not just do whatever you’re told. That’s a country would want to punish citizens who did particles of water who has to bounce off the rock what freedom is. that. The bill goes on to criminalize selling blue- just so future generations of water particles can In the late nineteenth century, Supreme prints, defense secrets, maps, models, weapons, 4 have a smooth run down the river, Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes abridged and so on. All of which sounds pretty reason- able. But look more closely. If you strip it down, World War I. In fact, I couldn’t find any use of veillance equipment on people or their property. it’s illegal to obtain information about any the law at all after WWI. Even when Reagan, In fact, the “Enhanced Surveillance Procedures” “work of defense.” Conscription (drafting peo- Bush, Oliver North, and John Poindexter sold all essentially strip any pretense of due process ple into the military) is a “work of defense.” So, of those weapons to Iraq in the eighties, away from search and seizure. Now, if the FBI if you obtain information about conscription and Congress refused to dust off the old Espionage wants to watch you, listen to your phone calls, use it to injure the US war effort, then you’re in Act and send those guys to prison. So, again, it rummage through your underwear drawer, what- violation of The Espionage Act. And obtaining could be labeled as ancient history but keep in ever, they can. The only reason they need is, the information that conscription exists and mind two things. First, if soldiers fought for our “Because I say so.” But the scariest thing about injuring the effort by saying in public that you freedom in World War I, it certainly wasn’t for the USA PATRIOTAct is that it sets up all these oppose conscription is a direct violation of The our freedom of speech. In fact, World War I provisions to stop terrorists and terrorism with- Espionage Act. It seems like a pret- out even defining what a “terrorist” ty liberal interpretation of the law, is. It’s the exact same thing as The but it’s exactly the interpretation Espionage Act not defining what a that the law was written for. In “work of defense” is. According to other words, the law was passed so the USA PATRIOT Act, a terrorist that the US Department of Justice is anyone who the government could arrest anyone who spoke out wants to call a terrorist. So accord- against the war. And that’s exactly ing to this act of Congress, you what the Department of Justice have your full compliment of civil did. rights until someone in the govern- As soon as The Espionage Act ment wants to call you a terrorist, passed on June 15, 1917, the US at which point all civil rights are government started to round up lost, you can be searched, your and imprison anyone who spoke home can be searched, all your out against the draft. They raided phone calls and emails can be mon- the offices of various publications itored, your property can be seized, that were unfriendly to the draft and you can be imprisoned, secret- and stuck all the editors, publish- ly and indefinitely, without being ers, and workers of those publica- charged. But if you this scares you, tions in prison. They raided anti- don’t let it. You have nothing to war rallies and arrested the speak- worry about because the guy ers. They broadened their attack behind the USA PATRIOT Act is and started to arrest labor leaders Attorney General John Ashcroft, and well-known dissidents. They who is probably a nice guy, if you even went so far as to arrest an ignore the fact that he admitted to opposing political party’s presi- secretly arresting and imprisoning dential candidate. Most of the peo- 548 people between September 11 ple arrested were given extremely and September 13, 2001. He’s long jail sentences, too. probably a pretty nice guy if you Under The Espionage Act, ignore the fact that he refused to Emma Goldman and Alexander disclose the names of any of these Berkman were arrested for speak- secret prisoners (which is what ing out against the draft. They made them a secret, I know), he were both deported to Russia, and refused to hold these prisoners on the arrest silenced their respective any charge, and, when they magazines, Mother Earth and The demanded some sort of due Blast! In September of 1917, process, he sent them to a not-so- police simultaneously raided forty- legal secret military tribunal. If you eight meetings of the Industrial ignore the fact that this is just what Workers of the World, arresting 168 IWW lead- effectively fought against our freedom of Ashcroft admitted to, and speculation by most ers. IWW leader Big Bill Haywood, along with speech. Second, we can fast forward to the cur- human rights organizations – and even the New fourteen other prominent union leaders, was rent administration and see that three separate York Times – accuses him of doing much worse. sentenced to twenty years in prison. Haywood acts of Congress in the past two years have aped But he’s probably a good guy. The USA PATRI- fled the country rather than serving the time, but The Espionage Act. OT Act is probably a good idea, if you ignore all the other fourteen served their sentences. Thirty- The first attempt at updating The Espionage that. three other IWW leaders were sentenced to ten Act was the USA PATRIOT Act. The USA Also, like all mean spirited little beasts, the years. The rest were given shorter sentences, but PATRIOT Act was pushed through Congress USA PATRIOT Act spawned two offspring: the raids effectively killed one of the most pow- with little resistance, mostly because it hit the TIPS and the Information Awareness Office. erful labor unions in US history. In 1918, Philip congressional floor in the wake of the The first little beast was Terrorist Randolph was imprisoned for writing in The September 11th panic. The USA PATRIOT Act, Information and Prevention System (TIPS). On Messenger about the racism in the US military. under its first provision, claims that “the civil the surface, TIPS was established to make it eas- He argued that black soldiers shouldn’t fight for rights and liberties of all Americans, including ier for people to report terrorist plots, which a country that doesn’t treat blacks equally. Arab Americans, must be protected.” And it seems a bit paranoid and off to me, but I guess it Randolph almost got off the hook, though, essentially proposes that it will allow the gov- could be reasonable. I don’t like endorsing because the judge couldn’t believe that “a black ernment to do everything in its power to stop ter- narcs, but I guess it’s better to be a narc than it boy” was smart enough to write the article. In rorist activity. When you first read the USA is to allow another September 11. But when you the end, the judge was convinced and Randolph PATRIOT Act, it seems reasonable. Confusing, looked deeper into TIPS, you found that it was sent to prison. On June 16, 1918, Socialist Party but reasonable. When you look closer, you see the law that encouraged plumbers, electricians, leader Eugene V. Debs attacked The Espionage that it allows the US government to confiscate handymen, the cable guy, and anyone else who Act and was sentenced to ten years in prison for property from foreigners living within the US works primarily in other people’s homes, to spy it. Two years later, he ran for president from without giving warning or cause for the seizure. on people. Though TIPS didn’t make it out of prison and received more than a million votes. You see that it reverses more than a dozen laws the House of Representatives, it’s still scary that I’m not sure if The Espionage Act is still a that have been put into place this century to pro- it was even considered. It’s even scarier that Joe law. I couldn’t find any evidence of it being tect the privacy of citizens. You see that it makes Leiberman, who ran for Vice President on the repealed, but I also couldn’t find any evidence of it easier for the US government to obtain search Democratic ticket in 2000, was in a unique posi- it being used to quiet anti-war protests after warrants and to plant phone taps or other sur- tion to ban the bill, and he didn’t ban it. The second little beast is the Information Sportscenter. I watched about twenty minutes of So, again I ask: could it be that the news Awareness Office. Permission for the this before I decided that any war reporting that isn’t really news at all, and that the mass media Information Awareness Office did slide through didn’t include images of dead bodies was bull- is just a publicist for the state? Congress, and it now exists as a part of the US shit. Not that I want to see dead bodies. I don’t. federal government. The Office has been grant- But that’s what war is. It’s the systematic tearing Beneviolent ed $200 million to set up a central computer of life from humans who would have otherwise Now, I know I’ve gone on and on here for a database that creates a dossier on 300 million continued living. Endorsing war is endorsing the long time and it seems as if I still haven’t spoken Americans. According to the New York Times, death of thousands of people, a lot of whom specifically about the proposed invasion against the Information Awareness Office is set up to aren’t even soldiers. And if you’re going to sup- Iraq, but I have. I’ve talked about how our past record “every purchase you make with a credit port war, you should see the death. Every day. wars have stripped American citizens of civil card, every magazine subscription you buy and On every newscast. But CNN managed to cover rights, the freedom of speech, and the freedom medical prescription you fill, every Web site you an entire war without showing a corpse. of the press. At the same time, all of the United visit and e-mail you send or receive, every aca- A couple of years later, I shared an apart- States’ wars, including the proposed one in Iraq, demic grade you receive, every bank deposit ment with a Gulf War veteran. We were talking have supposedly been about fighting for free- you make, every trip you book and every event about war one day and he went back into his dom, for our beliefs, for civil rights. And wars you attend.” This seems like a far-fetched goal bedroom and pulled out a photo album. The are never about your freedom, your cause, or to me, and I can’t see how any organization album had all of his snapshots from the war, and your rights. could do anything with such a bulk of informa- it was littered with dead bodies. He told me This brings us to the last excuse that we tion (especially when they’re given only sixty- about walking through towns where everything always hear as a reason for war: that so and so is six cents per person they monitor), but it’s still a was leveled, where he saw the charred remains the next Hitler, an evil dictator, and, if he’s not scary thought, and Congress has already allocat- of kids still stuck in their school desks. For the stopped, he’ll try to take over the world. The US ed the $200 million. What’s even more troubling next few days, I went through everything I could tries to paint a picture of itself as this benevolent is the fact that the head of the Information find in the state university library there in town, protector of the world, sending its army all over Awareness Office is John Poindexter. For those struggling to find some information to verify my to fight against tyranny and preserve justice and of you who don’t remember the eighties or did- housemate’s story. I couldn’t. I continue to hear democracy. It just seems so silly. n’t pay attention to the Iran-Contra Affair, John stories about the death in Iraq, though. Just a If the US really believes in fighting against Poindexter was the National Security Advisor to couple of days ago, I heard novelist Sherman tyranny, why did it support slavery for four hun- Reagan, and it was Poindexter who oversaw the Alexie speak. Alexie told about the twelve miles dred years? Why does it continue to support US government program that illegally sold of dead bodies on the road to Baghdad, most of contemporary slavery in the form of worldwide weapons to the Middle East so they could get whom had been shot in the back. Again, I don’t sweatshops? If the US is really benevolent, why money to fund the overthrow of the popular know where he got his information. I can’t say did they kill all of those Indians? Because, keep uprising in Nicaragua. It’s a confusing affair and for sure if it ever happened. If it was reported in in mind the next time you hear about the “next I don’t want to get too deep into it right now, but the mass media, it was very well hidden. If it Hitler” that Hitler tried to wipe a race of people the important part of it is this: as part of the Iran- wasn’t reported, that still doesn’t mean it didn’t off the face of the earth and failed; the US tried Contra Affair, the US sold Iraq things like chem- happen. Most of us have never been reported on to wipe a race of people off the face of the earth ical warfare production facility plans, chemical in the mass media, but we happen every day. and pretty much succeeded. And if you think analysis equipment, and missile system guid- Besides, I’ll believe an ex-marine’s snapshots that’s ancient history, then why does the US still ance equipment. So, just to repeat that, the guy and a first-hand account over CNN any day. refuse to honor treaties with Native American who’s in charge of checking your email to make But the mass media continues to ignore the tribes? Why don’t Native American tribes own sure that you’re not a terrorist is the same guy deaths in war and continues to fail to question the mineral rites to the land on their reserva- who taught Saddam Hussein how to make chem- wars at all. The coverage of the war in tions? Why is the US government supporting the ical weapons. Afghanistan was essentially restricted to pic- attack on the indigenous people of Chiapis, So, I’m not really talking about Iraq yet. tures of maps, aerial photographs, US Armed Mexico? That’s true. But before the US races to the Forces press releases, human interest pieces Even if we ignore slavery and the genocide Middle East to fight for freedom there, maybe about how the soldiers were helping to rebuild a of the Native Americans, even if we ignore we should take some time to fight for freedoms school (without mentioning what happened to sweatshops and Chiapis, even if we just look at that we’re losing here in the US. And before the the school in the first place), and things like that. the events of current US military history, the US races to Iraq to stop an evil dictator, maybe But there were no dead bodies. And NBC record is far from benevolent, far from just or we should take a glance at the evil dictators who Nightly News (which just happens to be owned democratic, far from an elimination of evil dic- are hanging out in DC. And before we talk about by one of the United States’ largest defense con- tators. Let’s start with Pearl Harbor. the how advisable a war is in Iraq, maybe we tractors, General Electric) never asked the Everyone cries for Pearl Harbor, and it was should talk about why no one in the media is biggest questions. No one on TV asked basic a tragedy. It’s sad that all of those people were talking about that. things like, “Why are retaliating against killed in Pearl Harbor. But it’s a mistake to say Afghanistan for the September 11th attacks when that American soil was attacked, because Hawaii The Great Sucking Sound the guys responsible for the attacks were Saudi wasn’t a state in 1941. It was a US colony. The I don’t do it often, but occasionally I’ll and Egyptians?” and “Did anyone notice that United States had gone into Hawaii and forcibly watch the news on TV. Every time I watch it, I Saudi Arabia and Egypt are nowhere near taken it over. Less than fifty years before Pearl can’t help noticing that no one on the news is Afghanistan?” and “If you can’t find Osama bin Harbor, the Native Hawaiians tried to kick the talking about whether or not we should go to Laden in Afghanistan, how do you know he’s US government out of Hawaii. In 1895, the war with Iraq. Everyone on TV is talking about there?” and “Since when do you bomb a whole United States overthrew Hawaii’s constitutional when and how we should go to war with Iraq. In country to find one man?” monarchy, imprisoned their queen, and set up a the meantime, when I talk to friends, neighbors, When the US entered into the Gulf War in puppet government, placing Sanford Ballard people at work, my landlady, the manager of the 1991, President George Bush kept saying, “We Dole (of the Dole Pineapple company) in local drugstore, and so on, everyone’s talking don’t want another Vietnam.” Most Americans charge. So yes, it’s sad to say that all those peo- about whether or not we should go. So why is interpreted this as, “We don’t want another long, ple died at Pearl Harbor. It’s even sadder to say there such a huge gap between what everyone in drawn out war where a lot of innocent people are that all of those American soldiers were in Pearl America is talking about and what everyone on killed,” and agreed with Bush. In retrospect, it’s Harbor because the US government had taken the news is covering? Could it be that the news pretty clear that what Bush really meant by “not over a country and killed off most of the natives isn’t really news at all, and that the mass media another Vietnam” was, “If we don’t let newspa- just so it could have a mid-Pacific port and a is just a publicist for the state? pers run any pictures of any naked little girls bunch of pineapple farms. I remember during the first Bush invasion of whose skin is burning off because of the napalm As we move away from history and into cur- Iraq, everyone I knew was glued to CNN. My we dropped on her, then we can pretty much kill rent events, we can look at 1954, when the CIA friends skipped school and stayed home and as many civilians as we want in Iraq.” And he led its first coup against a democratically elect- watched a war that looked like a video game, was right. Silencing the media helped him. And ed leader by overthrowing the prime minister of and they watched world news reports that were it helped Clinton. And now it helps George W. Iran, Mohammad Mosaddeq, and replacing him 6 eerily similar to episodes of Bush. with Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (the Shah), who became a brutal dictator and later crowned Rwanda sat on top of some oil reserves. fought any battles with anyone, and no one has himself “The King of Kings.” Also in 1954, the When you examine this whole record, presented any solid proof that Iraq has weapons CIA led its second coup against a democratical- though, from the first slave ship to the last CIA of mass destruction. I’m not saying that Saddam ly elected leader, this time in Guatemala, where coup to the silent consent of the Rwandan geno- Hussein is a good guy. I’m not saying that he’s they assassinated the president of Guatemala, cide, it’s really, really hard to believe that the US not a dictator. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, and replaced him with ever involves itself in a war for humanitarian be removed from power. I’m just asking why the a series of military dictators. On September 11, purposes. Even if you believe that a war can be president and the US military is so anxious to go 1973, the CIA and FBI combined to help plan fought and people can be killed for humanitari- to war with Iraq. Because you can’t tell me it’s and train the military overthrow of the democra- an purposes, you have to admit that the United tically elected president of Chile, Salvador States’ foreign policy record, coupled with their Allende. The military coup resulted in the brutal record for stripping civil rights at home during reign of military dictator General Augusto times of war, is awfully suspicious. And, to be Pinochet. Pinochet has since been kicked out of honest, I can’t believe that the United States has office and is currently on trial in Spain for his ever fought a war for freedom, for human rights, So, just to repeat that, the guy who’s in charge of checking your email to make sure that you’re not a terrorist is the same guy who taught Saddam Hussein how to make chemical weapons. various human rights violations he committed for democracy, or to battle against tyranny. I while he was the dictator of Chile. In 1975, the don’t know why the US fights wars. But I feel US supported Indonesia’s campaign to invade pretty confident that they don’t have the best of East Timor. The campaign ended up killing hun- intentions. dreds of thousands of people and virtually wip- ing out everyone who lived on the island. In the Finally, Iraq eighties, the US plotted to overthrow popular With all of that said, let’s look at Iraq. First governments in both Nicaragua and El Salvador off, I don’t believe that the Gulf War was fought for humanitarian reasons. It’s not a fight for free- – succeeding in El Salvador, where the US can to liberate Kuwait. It’s true that Saddam Hussein dom and it’s not a fight for human rights and it’s boast the honor of training ten of the men who invaded Kuwait. It’s true that he shouldn’t have. not the benevolent act of the world’s only super- orchestrated the El Mozote massacre that left It’s true that he needed to be contained. It’s true power and Iraq hasn’t invaded any other country nine hundred men, women, and children dead in that the US didn’t go into the Gulf War alone, and no one has shown any proof of weapons of a matter of hours. And really, the list goes on and that they were backed by the United Nations. I’ll mass destruction. So what is the purpose behind on. The US has supported, trained, funded, and admit all of that. But, according a University of this proposed war? backed a massive list of dictators and tyrants Chicago political science professor, John I have no fucking idea. throughout South and Central America, Mearsheimer, and the dean of international As long as I’m asking questions I can’t Southeast Asia, Western Africa, and the Middle affairs at Harvard, Stephen M. Walt, in a recent answer, though, what about this one: if the East. And, at the top of this massive list of peo- issue of Foreign Policy magazine, “In July 1990, United States is so concerned with the possibili- ple trained by the US are the United States’ two but before sending his army into Kuwait, ty of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruc- biggest enemies right now: Saddam Hussein and [Hussein] approached the United States to find tion, why did the US sell him all those weapons Osama bin Laden. out how it would react. In a now famous inter- of mass destruction and plans for weapons of With all of this in mind, the best way to pre- view with the Iraqi leader, U.S. Ambassador mass destruction and “dual use” chemicals that vent military dictatorships and to foster justice April Glaspie told Saddam, ‘[W]e have no opin- can be used for biological weapons, back in the and democracy globally is not to go to war. All ion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border eighties? Granted, I know George W. Bush did- the US has to do is to stop funding and training disagreement with Kuwait.’ The U.S. State n’t have anything to do with selling Hussein all military dictators, and to stop orchestrating Department had earlier told Saddam that that stuff. But George W. Bush’s father did. And coups that put them in power. Washington had ‘no special defense or security George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Donald But let’s ignore that, too. We’ll ignore slav- commitments to Kuwait.’” And, after essentially Rumsfeld, did. And George W. Bush’s Vice ery and genocide and sweatshops and Chiapis giving Hussein’s plans to invade Kuwait implic- President, Dick Cheney, did. And George W. and the training and funding of military dictators it consent, the US turned around and pressured Bush’s Secretary of State, Colin Powell, did. and the CIA-led coups that replaced democratic the UN to support Bush and the Gulf War. It’s And the head of George W. Bush’s Information governments with dictatorships. We’ll ignore all weird. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why would Awareness Office, John Poindexter, did. of that and still say that the US is a benevolent you tell Saddam Hussein that you don’t care if protector of the world, and their only motive is he invades Kuwait, then turn around and fight a War is Bad, Sure, But Not This One? to secure justice and democracy worldwide. If war against him for invading Kuwait? I’m not When you get deeper into this issue, it starts that’s the case, why did the US completely saying that the Gulf War was just about oil, but I to make less and less sense. It’s not as simple as ignore the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when am saying that if it were just about liberating the nightly news makes it seem. It’s not as sim- 800,000 people were killed in one hundred Kuwait, then the US sure did take the long way ple as it seems when you read the New York days? Eight hundred thousand people were around the barn. Times. The issues go way deeper than anything slaughtered by an army that didn’t even have When we look at the current plans to invade we can read on the internet or in zines or even in guns – most of the people were hacked to death Iraq, the facts are equally confusing. First, the big, nationally distributed news magazines and by machetes – and the benevolent protector US claims that they want to contain Iraq, but journals. It’s all so convoluted and complex and stood idly by. Why is that? The US knew about Iraq is already contained. Since the end of the I doubt that very many people in the world real- it. The New York Times reported on it daily. Gulf War, Iraq has committed no act of aggres- ly know what’s going on. I know that, the more Clinton mentioned it in news conferences. The sion. The United Nations has imposed sanctions I research the situation, the more confused I get. UN Security Council chatted about it. Canada, on Iraq that effectively eliminate the flow of So let’s stick with some basic facts. Let’s forget France, Belgium, and the US all had troops near- medicines into Iraq, but Iraq hasn’t fought back. about all the ins and outs of the case and end this by. Rwanda had no weapons of mass destruc- Even conservative estimates place the number of long rant with nice, comfortable generalizations. tion. Hell, they hardly had guns. The situation deaths as a result of the sanctions at around Here are five simple, tough-to-dispute reasons would’ve been pretty easy to control, especially 500,000, but Iraq hasn’t physically fought back. why the US shouldn’t go to war with Iraq. when you compare it to UN intervention in The UN weapons inspectors have looked every- Number one: the rest of the world doesn’t Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Yet the UN and where and they haven’t found shit. The most support a US invasion of Iraq. Sure, England is the US, in their quest for justice and in their bat- deadly weapons they’ve found are the ones that backing the US, and Australia’s sending a few tle against tyranny, let 800,000 people get the US sold to Iraq. But, for the most part, Iraq ships and troops to the Persian Gulf, but the rest hacked to death. And I hate to be a cynic, but I has complied with the inspections. For the past of the world is staying out of it. Most of the have to wonder if the US would’ve sat idly by if eleven years, Iraq hasn’t invaded any country or nations in the UN are refusing to 7 back the US invasion. France has said that they terrorists, but the guys who attacked the World them) go into Iraq and orchestrate their “regime can’t imagine a scenario in which they back the Trade Center had some demands. Among those change,” then the US and its coalition forces US invasion. Germany, Russia, and China have demands were 1.) get the US military out of will hold the oil fields in trust for the Iraqi peo- all come out with statements that echo France’s Saudi Arabia and 2.) end UN sanctions in Iraq. ple and make sure the people of Iraq profit from sentiments. Hell, even Canada is staying away. I Obviously, I don’t agree with their methods in the sales of Iraqi oil. The US will hold the land was watching CSPAN the other night and I saw making these demands, but these are two pretty and everything underneath it in trust for the peo- Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien talking reasonable demands. The potential war against ple who lived there first, and the US will give all to the Canadian parliament about the current Iraq has already 1.) increased the size of US mil- the profits to the people who lived there first. Iraq situation. I saw him bang his hand on the itary presence in Saudi Arabia and 2.) worsened That’s exactly what the US government told podium and say, “We will not become another the situation in Iraq. So, essentially, the US is the Native Americans, right before nearly wip- United States.” And the Canadian parliament taking a shit on the two things that caused ter- ing them off the face of the earth. erupted in applause. I felt so embarrassed. rorists to fly planes into the World Trade Center. Yep, that’s exactly what they told the Beyond that, though, the basic fact remains How do you think the terrorists feel about this Indians. that, if the US goes into a war in the Middle East (the ones who are still alive, that is)? What do –Sean Carswell essentially alone, it’s gonna be expensive. Even you think they’re gonna do next? if the US wins the war. Even if Saddam Hussein Number four: Bush’s proposed “regime Here’s a list of some of the places is taken out of power and the weapons of mass change” is nothing more than old fashioned where I got my information: destruction are found and destroyed, it’s going imperialism. The plan is to go into a country, H.R. 3162, the USA PATRIOT Act, Public Law No:107-56 to be a very expensive war. It’s going to be a war forcibly remove their leader, and install your H.R. 291, the Espionage Act funded solely by US taxpayers. This means that own government. By definition, that’s imperial- www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWespionage.htm www.hrw.org (Human Rights Watch) all of the money for US schools, roads, libraries, ism. And under no circumstances is imperialism www.worldstatesman.org social security, social services, everything, is acceptable. Not to oversimplify things, but you www.newspoetry.com going to be lying dead in the Middle Eastern can trace the source of almost all the civil unrest www.zmag.org desert. in the world back to a time when the region www.alertnet.org www.guardian.co.uk Number two: Iraq may or may not have where the unrest is occurring was taken over by www.bbc.co.uk nuclear weapons, but Pakistan definitely does another country. People don’t forget it when you www.darpa.mil/iao have nuclear weapons. Right now, the military take over their country. It pisses them off. They Allen, Helena G., The Betrayal of Liliuokalani, Mutual Publishing, 1994 dictator in Pakistan is friendly to the US, but fight you until you leave. Israel took over Biafra, Jello, The Big Ka-Boom, Part One, AK Press 2002 he’s not very popular in Pakistan. The longer he Palestine in 1949. The Israelis and Palestinians Ross, John, War Against Oblivion, Common Courage, 2001 supports the US in the Middle East, the less fought over that today. Fifty-four years have Tracy, James ed., The Civil Disobedience Handbook, Manic popular he becomes. It’s not unlikely that he passed, and the fighting will continue tomorrow. D Press, 2002 Zinn, Howard, A People’s History of the United States, could be overthrown, and if he is, he’ll most So, if the US takes over Iraq and changes “the Harper Perennial, 1995 likely be overthrown by a dictator who’s not regime,” how long do you think the Iraqis are Zinn, Howard, Terrorism and War, Seven Stories, 2002 friendly to the US. And Pakistan has nuclear going to fight the US over that? Mearsheimer, John J. and Walt, Stephen M., “An Unnecessary War,” Foreign Policy Magazine, Jan./Feb. 2003 weapons. Number five: US Secretary of State Colin Safire, William, “You Are a Suspect” New York Times, Dec. Number three: I don’t endorse giving terror- Powell told NBC’s Meet the Press that, if the 13, 2002 ist what they want, and I don’t often agree with “coalition forces” (the US and whoever backs Maddy Tight Pants’s article in the Dec. 2002 issue of Maximum Rocknroll
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Ayn Imperato ... he only said, “I’ll have to wait 300 tables to pay for that guitar.” SShhiittccaannnneedd AAggaaiinn Another night, another out of town show. This time, there was so much loud music, spas- tic dancing, beer flying, glass breaking, and gen- erally flailing limbs that no one even noticed that the one harmonica player on stage had been pantsed. He stood there with this pants around his ankles, with his jewels hanging out, playing a frigging harmonica and no one noticed. By the end of the night he limped around the club holding his bruised sack in horrified pain, after being whacked by an errant flying limb. As the night wore on, he was joined by several other punk dudes, all freakishly walking around the bar holding their members with pained faces, after being punched or kicked amidst the musi- cal fury. Through it all, one tall hairy guy, wet with beer, shuffled ape-like through the tiny bar throughout the night. At the after party this time, we realized the grim truth in a horrified, shining moment – there was no beer. Or any other alcohol whatsoever. It was five minutes to two and too late for a beer run. Although there were over thirty people in the house, all just standing around expectantly, every single person forgot to buy beer. Ayn Imperato What followed was an every-man-for him- self raid of the cabinets, where someone unearthed two half-drunken Gallo wine bottles, a third of Tanqueray, and a last swig of cinna- mon schnapps. People were grabbing mostly drunken beer bottles and cans that were just lying or sitting on the tables, then picking them out of the recycling bin to glean a last swill of malt. And then it happened – one guy from The Eddie Haskells emerged from the bathroom with name brands completely, into bottles simply Scope punks were gone. Just mysteriously van- a bottle of Scope, raised like the torch of the labeled, “Mouth Rinse,” which is basically sec- ished, every last one of them. I’m sure sleep had Statue of Liberty. “It’s all right, there’s Scope!” ond-rate Scope. Like the Night Train of mouth- eluded them as they drove a fast track to home, he cried. Although most people shrunk away wash. away from what they had done. from the neon green bottle, a few of those guys When every last bottle of mouth rinse in the did Scope shots for the better part of an hour, house was emptied, we looked over at Jeff – The Our band, on the other hand, had our own using the plastic cap as a shot glass. Haskells bass player. He was sitting in a wood- troubles. It seems that on the drive home, our Jeff, the bass player, was the ringleader. en chair with his hands folded, facing the wall, own bass player’s Gibson SG flew out of our When he spoke you could smell his minty breath with glazed, unresponsive eyes. It was too late to truck bed into the freeway. The worst part was from across the room. “Come on!” he shouted, save him. that we didn’t realize this or hear when it hap- thrusting the full green cap at all those who The rest of us mulled over their other dilem- pened, since we were blaring The Devil Dogs’ passed by, like a Scope pusher man. The harsh ma – what would happen when they woke up the Stereodrive! and driving faster, apparently, than green stuff was like liquid crack for alcoholics. next morning? Would their mouths still be fresh a person should with a truckload of exposed And soon enough, the Scope was gone. It had and minty clean? They certainly would not be gear. been completely downed by the Scope punks. gargling with mouthwash to kill the taste, right? The first thing I noticed was this hippy lady Then the Listerine was brandished – the yel- Even toothpaste would be hard to keep down, kept driving by in her Lexus smiling and waving low kind, even. By the end of the night, the bot- you’d imagine. at me. But she just looked really friendly, like tles started moving away from 10 When we woke up the next morning, the she was saying hi, instead of beeping and flash- ing her lights like you’d guess a person might road kill waiting to be found. While we do after watching a guitar wing out on to the watched the cop’s finger move this way and freeway. She just smiled and waved – I think I that, and counted backwards from twelve, we might have even waved back. Around five could see semis racing by from the corners of miles later a guy finally motioned for us to pull our eyes. Precious time was being lost. I knew over, where he informed us that our guitar had it then – the guitar was gone. fallen dead-center in the median line on the After the song and dance, the cop finally road, a few miles back. With tires smoking we took our statement and made a brief effort to hi-tailed it back over the five miles and help search for the AWOL instrument. But by retraced our drive, scanning for signs of it, or then it was too late – there was nothing for for splintered guitar carnage. miles on the road. Someone had apparently Glen was silent in the car. A waiter, when pulled over, hucked the guitar into their car, not a blazing rock god, he only said, “I’ll have and took off, 800-pawn-shop-dollars richer. to wait 300 tables to pay for that guitar.” Then Glen remembered something. He had After a time, someone spotted a glimpse of put a flyer of the club we played at in the gui- something vaguely black and solid in the free- tar case. It had a date – the night before – and way median, so we pulled over on the shoulder the name of the club and city where we had to take a closer look. Our drummer and bass played. It was easily traceable. Maybe some- player, Mundo and Glen, raced in between cars one would open it, see the flyer, and contact across the road and started to walk along the the club. It would be that easy. Maybe someone narrow grassy strip that is the Route 101 medi- would actually be a decent person and return an, knee-high in scrub brush, searching. It was the guitar after all. There was a moment of a Gibson SG guitar, after all, and worth wading hope. Good and evil hung in the balance. through the median like a prison-worker pick- Honesty and all that is good and true, or all that ing up trash in an orange vest. is selfish, materialistic, and just plain mean. Within minutes the cops came. Did they There it was, the choices of life. Just one sim- come to help? Think again. They came to order ple phone call from the person who found it on the guys off the median immediately. To make the side of the road. One month later, we are matters worse, they smelled the beer from the still waiting. night before on our clothes and shoes and It was a careless, lost weekend. Shitcanned asked if we were drunk. Then, instead of help- again. Sometimes that brings you unbeliev- ing us search, they made us all take the sobri- able, unholy fun. Sometimes that leaves you ety test. Instead of having the extra help with a leftover pain in your crotch, a mouth searching for it while the loss was fresh, we rinse hangover, or $800 down. wasted valuable searching time playing circus games with the cops. Meanwhile, our guitar –Ayn Imperato was out there somewhere like some half-alive SqueezeSqueezeSqueeze MyMyMy HornHornHorn
“See if you have any fucking arms left to eat the food we dropped after you step on a landmine trying to retrieve it!” Welcome to the year 2003. Nothing has the people were approachable. So, I guess what job, on the radio, and TV – it is kind of scary. changed here and everything is business as I’m trying so piss poorly to say is I want to hear During the War on Terror when we were usual. Truthfully, I was hoping for some radical some complaining and I want to hear it in song, regularly bombing Afghanistan, we were also changes in the punk rock world. See, I was hop- straight forward and to the point. Is that to much sending food aid to the civilians. But, as Rees ing since we have that shit for brains Bush guy to ask? points out, the country was a minefield. One of in the White House, that we would be seeing a the characters tells his friend, “Well, it turns the resurgence in some of the great music that we relief effort into a fun game for the Afghan peo- had back when Reagan was in office and fuck- ple – a game called ‘See if you have any fucking ing the country up. Not one group of musicians arms left to eat the food we dropped after you has emerged with some political tunes, either step on a landmine trying to retrieve it!’” His funny or serious. buddy replies back, “Right! Or maybe they Now, let’s go over some of the recent news could play ‘See if, when you step on the land- that could warrant a band to think activism. First mine, the food package flies into your fucking and foremost, this agenda the Bush family has decapitated head as it sails through the air!’” with old Saddam and Iraq. This one is just fever Rees puts his money where his mouth is and is blistered for some good old poli-punk slam- donating all of the royalties from the book to the ming. I personally think that Pop Bush is just Mine Detection & Dog Center Team #5 in pissed and wants his face off that mosaic on the Western Afghanistan. Soft Skull Press is also entrance to that hotel in Iraq. Then what about kicking in a percentage of their proceeds. I real- Bush Jr.? Is it just me or is this guy as well men- ly don’t want to give anymore of the discussion tally as uncle Ronnie is currently? Every day I away, so what I’m going to tell you is get your see some political cartoon in the paper that hands on this, it’s really shockingly funny. I seems more true to life than we first think. guess that the old punkers became comic writ- Since we are going after political figures, ers, because this is what I thought I would be how about California’s own Republican gover- hearing on disc, but I’m instead reading it in nor… What’s that? You say he’s a Democrat? print. So don’t forget, it’s called GET YOUR Well, I must have a wool coat on then. Why is it WAR ON by David Rees and it’s put out by Soft that Gray would rather give monies to the pris- Hi. Me again and I’ve had a full twenty- Skull Press, 71 Bond Street Brooklyn, NY ons than to the schools? Either way, I’m four hours since the previous thoughts. Of 11217, and you can contact them on the web at: screwed. I don’t have my own kids that I pay course, early this morning there was another www.softskull.com. taxes on and I don’t have an inmate buddy that I tragedy when the news of the space shuttle write letters to. exploding over Texas was blasted from my radio INBRED PICNIC #4 Here’s another subject that is even closer to on the way into work. Do you think God gets $1 U.S. home. If I were to install a home security warn- tired of us, sighs, and then goes Old Testament This collection of shorts has some pretty funny ing to alert to the police that a unwanted person to knock some sense into us? I feel sorry for the and thought-provoking stories, but I think the is in my house, it would be more money that I families of the crewmembers but does it make first one, entitled “The Great Punk/Metal was losing because the police will not respond. you wonder: an Israeli on board, debris scattered Crossover,” is the big winner. The time is the They say it is because they don’t have the man- over the President’s home state, an American mid-‘80s and there is a social bonding in the power, but answer me this, when you see one of disaster? No, I’m not cold hearted and I’m not a men’s bathroom at some local high school about the many car chases that the Southland is popu- conspiracy theorist, I just think too much. the ideals of both punk and metal. The author lar for, how many cars do you see when it ends? After I finished writing last night, I sat down places the two groups in almost a brotherhood of I thought so. It’s a damn shame. to read my last two comics, and you know what? musical ideals. Weird, but let’s go on. On the I’m not musically talented, because if I was, I found gold in the stack. All that crap I said fourth page (seventh if you go by the number at I’d be in hog heaven. There are so many issues about the lack of a return to political punk, it the bottom of the page) in the panel “friendships that should be making people mad, yet I’m not seems that it has found a home in the comics. It were made” there is an artist’s rendering of a kid hearing it. See, I was always amazed that most was a small book of comic strips written by with long hair and a pentagram shirt with his of the guys in punk were not just runaway kids, David Rees. I have not laughed at such ballsy arm around a kid with spiked hair and a Black but people with highly educated backgrounds humor since Rich Mackin’s corporate poetry. Flag shirt singing “V.A. rocks your liver.” How who could look at current events and say, “Hey, The title of the book is Get Your War On and it fucking great is that? Oh man, is that sweet jus- that’s something that will have some dire social is a fucking masterpiece of political humor. tice. This guy really fucking knows what he’s implications and I’ll get the news out to all Sarcasm does so well with current events. It’s doing. Using Verbal Abuse to relate punk to through the medium called punk rock.” In the the same series of panels, of either people on the metal is like using apples to define gravity. You very beginning I made the wrong call and dis- telephone or in the lunch room talking out of all remember V.A., the San Francisco band that missed the scene as a bunch of hooligans, but I their asses about the possible war, or the anthrax put out one of the greatest raw punk albums of was wrong. I read the lyric sheets of bands like mail, or the President, Operation Enduring all time, just to follow it up with a lame metal Bad Religion, Bad Brains, Exploited and boxes Freedom, and anything else that has ridiculous- album. Come on, grab your nuts and squeeze full of others. Punk in its heyday had no gim- ly taken place since the World Trade Center fell. real hard and sing with me “V.A. rocks your micks to sell millions of records and get that The images are so Dick and Jane that you have liver.” Ha, you remember now, dontcha? Trust exclusive interview in Rolling Stone. Punk was to laugh, but when you think about it the realism me, in a million years I would never have 12 straightforward, in-your-face, and – that you actually hear the same shit at your guessed I’d find this in the pages of a comic. This book is funny if you were a teen in the who, while digging for doughnuts in a dumpster, SNAKE PIT #2 eighties because you can relate to almost all of happens on this stars and stripes leotard with $2 U.S. the stories in there, but only if you were a teen matching crown and bracelets. At first she tries Wow, I remember when I was young. This is the during that time. If you like punk/metal stories, to pawn them off, but then decides to keep them story of Ben, a guy who works at a record store or stories about male bonding in the movie the- when the clerk offers only a dollar for them. She in Texas and the daily events that happen to him ater restroom (I’ll leave that for you to read), meets up with a friend and the two proceed to over the course of several months. He starts with then pilfer the paper because this one is ours. get drunk. While in her drunken stupor, she tries his travels as a roadie with a punk band. Let me (Inbred Picnic, PO Box 163463, Sacramento, on the costume. What do you know, she can fly. tell you, it brought back a lot of fun memories. CA 95816) So she dubs herself the smelly avenger and is off Band road trips are just plain fun; it’s funny to save other homeless kids from the injustices what we’ll go through for music. A lot of road PAUL THE PUNKER #7 of the police. Basically, we have a homeless trips are the people you meet and Ben hooks up $1.00 U.S. wonder woman comic, which works for me, with a ton. After the road trip we return to the First, let’s start with a physical description of because now there’s a need to know where did mundane life of work and living. It seems Ben Paul. He’s your typical generic punker: this costume comes from and will she continue smokes a lot of pot. Really, what this comic does mowhawk, dog bracelets, and combat boots. In to help the needy. See, it works as well as any of is point out the highlights in life or what we per- #7 we find the story revolving around Paul’s Marvel’s or DC’s chick comics. To get this one ceive as highlights. There are many of them. acid trip and the things the drug does to a hard- write (Arriel c/o 3 Madison St., Cambridge, MA The best part of this comic is when Ben stops knocks kid – basically all the bodily impair- 02138) drinking and then after a time decides to be
ments that happen. I’ve read this hundreds of THAT’S WHEN IT HAPPENED straight edge – you know, the X’s on the hands. times and it seems that everytime it’s the same, $3 U.S. Then after a while he goes back to the bottle and so let’s move along to #8. Now, #8 is a little The idea is one script, seventeen interpretations, the X’s end up in his eyes. I also like it when he more interesting in the fact that the car ride turns and it works oh so well. Here’s the script: “It goes to parties. He depicts the other partygoers out different than I expected. It seems that Paul was huge! Like nothing we had ever seen as monsters. So, I’m going to give this the pres- is a wanderer and he’s standing in the rain try to before. And when it landed between us we were idential approval. I don’t know if that does any- hitch a ride and he’s contemplating that if no one stunned into silence. George was the first to thing for Ben, but I did like his comic. picks him up, he’s going across the freeway and react. This could get messy! He stepped forward (Young American Comics, 412 ½ University rob a gas station. Well, lucky for Paul, a balding and we followed suit, descending upon the Ave. Suite #3, San Diego, CA 92103, middle-aged man stops to offer a ride. Soon shimmering form. That’s when it happened… a
Rich Mackin
Why not take in huge amounts of personal information about total strangers who you share genetic makeup with?
How I Came to Be a ting less appealing to me anyhow, so ling from coast to coast. It also the word community is used a lot I knew I wanted to move OUT, just means that, technically, I am home- without really considering what it Celebrated National not where to move TO. less, which is amusing, since I have means. If you and I see the same Spoken Word Star In July of 2002, I toured out to done workshops in which starry- band or attend the same rally, does Or Portland, Oregon, and for enough eyed college students ask me how that really make us a community? reasons to write an essay just about they can make a living doing what I And I must say that it is unfortunate I’m a Loser Bum Who that, I realized I had a destination. do. Heh, when I know, I’ll get back when the word is mostly used in Lives with My Come October I had exhausted my to you kids. context of “Is there really room for freelance connections, so the move Of course, I am not really home- _____ in OUR community?” Is Parents needed to be soon. I had hooked up less as it is understood. I am surely there room for someone waving an a free place to live in April for not destitute or sleeping on the American Flag at the anti-war First of all, let me start off that Oregon, but the question remained – street, or being “crusty” or anything. march? That guy said something I Sean and Todd seem to decide what to do in the meantime? In fact, were it not for all the tours think is sexist at a human rights Razorcake deadlines based on how Boston’s housing situation and travelling, I am pretty much liv- meeting… Is there any room for unlikely I will be able to sit in one men like that in this community? place and write a column in time. Well, if not, what do we do with Twice so far this has involved a them? Is a community a group in cross-country trip and me winding which you only include people that up writing the day before the dead- think and act just like you do? Or is line at Razorcake HQ. No small deal a community something made of considering that I still sorta live in people who interconnect and care New England, and this is in Los for each other, problems and dis- Angeles. agreements aside, and maybe even This time last year I was gain- seek to help each other grow, instead fully employed in Boston, of merely ostracize for negative Massachusetts, where I had been actions…you know, like a family? living since age eighteen (having Rich Mackin Yet, ironically, so many punks, lived up until that point in Norwalk, anarchists, artists and activists are CT.) But as the residue from removed from their families. September 11 kept building up and I won’t blame them all. For one the economy got crappier, I was thing, when I say “my parents” I called into my boss’s office. He mean my Mother, Cheryl Carman, explained to me that he had been and her husband, Roger Carman, a given orders from his own boss that man she met when I was in high he needed to eliminate one person in school. Mom’s first husband, my every position, and he had to decide Rich Mackin with his cousin Bob father, is a man I have not spoken to between three writers on my level. It and step dad, Roger (center) for eight years or so, if you don’t came down to a choice to lay off one include three lines of forced small of two guys who worked their whole sucks. Functionally, there are three ing with my mom. talk after eight drinks at a wedding. lives to get that job, both of whom times you can move and not have it That’s right, I am thirty, unem- Surely, if someone in your family is had wives and kids and mortgages cause you undo grief. Jan. 1, May- ployed, and live with my mom. abusive, or neglectful, or just plain that relied on them, or me, the sin- June, and Sept. 1. Fully a quarter of At the moment, I am still on a bad, maybe they are a lost cause. gle, childless guy who got the job by Boston’s population moves on cross country tour, so I guess my life Heck, sometimes they aren’t, but having the right higher up come September 1, and as such, there are is cooler than what you would kicking them out of your life for a across my zines. The choice celebrated trash picks and related expect a grown man who lives at few years might be what you both between thrusting a family into activity. I surely had no cause to stay home to have. But still, when I need. poverty and ruining a dream, or giv- the bulk of another year, so I con- return from this, I will spend a peri- But as a whole, I see many peo- ing a guy enough severance pay to firmed with my housemates that I od in the house I grew up in, in the ple I know living independent from go on a cross-country tour was an could leave in January with no prob- room I grew up with, eating dinner their various uncles, cousins and easy one. lem. Come Christmas time, I offi- with my parents. I did this for a grandmothers, save for an occasion- I spent the bulk of the year trav- cially moved out of Boston. Come week before this trip, and I must say al card or end of year form letter. elling and returning to Boston to April, I will live in Oregon. This it was far more interesting and fun This is, of course, a shame. work freelance at the same compa- means that right now, I don’t really than I ever thought. I have recently crossed over the ny, all the while sorting through my live anywhere. Which also means, Having been involved with so line from being a mindful meat eater possessions, minimizing what I to some extent, that I can call the many “communities” lately – to a full-on vegetarian, with future owned, knowing that I would find a whole nation my home, which to zinesters, DIY folk, anarchists, consideration of going vegan. As I new home as soon as I decided some extent, I am doing by travel- punks, etc., I have been noticing that contemplated a week of dinners where to go. Boston had been get- with my parents, it hit me that the act on it, how their consumption as important to interact with the stupid sometimes, you can best answer the best way to deal with this was not to Americans has effect on the envi- and mean spirited, or at least people question by finding out who you are nag my mom about what I didn’t ronment and people of faraway who have different opinions than NOT, which is why it is good to eat, but to go shopping and make the lands. Wow, I save a few hours of you. One of the biggest problems I know more about the types of peo- damn meals myself. All the discus- housework and help mom lose a lit- see in activist and other subcultures ple you don’t want to be. sion in the world won’t impart tle weight, and suddenly I have my is a false sense of purity made by Consider the phrase “know something onto someone the way parents spreading the word for me. excluding others and limiting inter- thine enemy.” If I wanted to know that a well-cooked meal was. (And Of course, my Uncle Gary still actions to dealing only with those what makes a slightly racist cop yes, even I was shocked at how refuses to try any soy products. He who are very like you. But when tick, I normally would have no good a cook I am with a nice big has decided that they must suck. A someone in such a case is forced to access to the mindset. That is, unless kitchen at my disposal.) Instead of standup comedian once said so. deal with the outside world, they I am related to one of them. (Which trying to debate that you can eat a Another thing I have realized shut down or freak out. Move out- I am. Yee ha.) variety of delicious meat-free meals, that I like about spending time with side your bubble and suddenly not One thing about being able to I demonstrated. Saving my mom a my family is that now that I have not everyone is concerned about your pick your friends but not being able few hours each night put her in a decided ahead of time that I will be “safe space” and “comfort zones”. to pick your relatives is that you much better mood, which opened bored and annoyed by my various It’s important to expand your almost have to deal with these peo- her up for discussion of my political relatives, how many of them have horizons, whoever you are. I know ple who would otherwise be reasons for my diet and other things. much more to say than I would many vegans who act as if the strangers. For instance, I already Soon, while we weren’t exactly hav- assume. I guess this is why you talk biggest problem in society is that have many punks and zinesters who ing me converting her to my mental- to people instead of just walk there are vegetarians who refuse to I know and who I can hang out with ities, I had her seeking to learn in my new home of Portland. But I about things most people merely also have two cousins living out scream at their parents about. there who, for all I know, have no Of course, as I said, I am thirty. ties to anything I am interested in I also have been living away and politically, artistically or otherwise. alone for many years and have a But they do something with their resume of grown up things and have time, and soon I will get to find out earned respect from a family that what it is. I already know that I might have balked at equally valid understand much more about points made by an eighteen-year- monogamous married suburban life old. This is unfortunately a fact in and the details of choosing a num- many situations – to many people, ber of careers via family ties that Rich Mackin the message is not as important as allow me to KNOW that I am not who the messenger is. I have gained missing anything living the life I some respect from my relatives lead. (And I am speaking just for when they realized that some of my me, not implying my life is better ideals were not a fad. Not that one for anyone but myself.) can’t be wrong for ten years, but the It is interesting how so many idea is that duration means validity. politically minded people go out to A major point in my struggle to the streets and protest or whatever earn my family’s respect was the in order to try and change the views Bush inauguration. I was in DC and actions of strangers, but are protesting and my mother found that uncomfortable with having discus- many of her coworkers were proud sions about the same things with of me for doing so. The day after, family. Indeed, not all family will my grandmother had been watching Rich Mackin, his mom, and his sister. want to learn, and not learn about all extensive news footage and said to things, and not learn from all rela- my mother, “You know, for years, I around deciding what they must eliminate dairy, anarchist/ radicals tives. But then again, no message is have always thought that much of have to say. Best example is my who curse the dreaded liberals, and fully taken in by everyone it is put what Rich said and did was disre- Uncle Jimmy. He always starts sto- punks who live to do their hair and upon. At one strategy meeting for spectful and unpatriotic. But the ries the way that all old men do, and show off their record collection. something years ago, it was asked more I look at the world around me, they always start like they’ll be fif- And all these people can easily dig how support could be increased, and the more I realize just how right he teen minute pointless rambles. But themselves into holes where all their people said that they would contact has been all along.” Thank you, after two minutes of set up, which conversations can be with people a large number of groups – other George, for being the final straw in always turn out to be needed, he who will parrot their own thoughts. caches of activists. I suggested we how stupid our society is to let my relates how being stationed in But a dinner with extended family each called up one relative a day grandmother see that I might have a Boston in the Navy led him to steal might force you to really understand (those who physically or emotional- point here and there. a trolley car one night and go for a that some people want meat in ly could) and try to get people in our But anyway, I am in CT making drunken 3 A.M. ride or relate insider EVERYTHING, are politically con- lives on our side. I was looked at vegetarian meals for my family, and info on nasty activity Shell Oil did servative (if not unadmittedly totali- like I was a madman. they start noticing that they are in the early twentieth century. His tarian) and could care less about But even the apolitical can gain enjoying the healthy food all the wife, my Aunt Ruth, always has the how perfect your fin mohawk is or to talk to the family. With “reality” more, my mom actually lost five most obscene jokes I have ever how many obscure 7”s you have, if shows dominating TV, it is clear that pounds after a lengthy weight battle, heard. When she asked me if I had they even know what a 7” is. Sure, taking in huge amounts of personal and both parents found themselves heard of Eminem, it was because it’s annoying when your uncle or information about total strangers is suddenly feeling much better all in she thought it was amusing that whoever asks why you dress/ act/ a popular mode of recreation. Why all. This leads them to tell friends someone is under fire for controver- talk the way you do, especially not take in huge amounts of person- and coworkers about their new way sial lyrics when, “He raps so fast. I when it’s more of a veiled insult al information about total strangers of eating, which finds them sudden- can never tell if he is being offen- than an actual inquiry, but maybe who you share genetic makeup ly realizing that they are knowl- sive.” A bit more insight than I your answer can be something you with? Just instead of watching a edgeable in the reasons someone might expect for an eighty-eight consider for yourself for personal director’s adaptation of them on a who likes eating meat would still year-old. growth. In order to explain who you screen, you get to learn from their take issue with the meat industry, Now, not all my relatives are are to someone else, you have to own words? why Equal Exchange fair trade interesting or informative. Many of know who you are, and often, you organic shade grown coffee is better them are ignorant and mean. But, don’t really know until you actually –Rich Mackin than Folgers, and even if they don’t you know, sometimes I think it is have to answer the question. And 15 ø ørb Love, Nørb Rev. N
Don’t sass a man without pants!
Dear readers: be like thirty-seven and still piss the old man off Dear Rev. Nørb: by doing something totally gay like dyeing your Sure! Try this one out on the fillies: “What did Like all Men of Science, or Hinckley, i had a hair purple? Think young, baby, think young!). the Undertones say when William the vision – and in said vision, i glimpsed a sprawl- Then the dye washed out. Now i look like Andy Conqueror’s homeland fell to the Franks? ‘There ing, festive morass of an advice column, with Warhol or someone. Ah, but did Warhol ever goes Normandy!”‘ The ladies’ll be picking quar- scads of the kooky and curious applying for solu- lounge around his house clad in nothing but ters off your ass in no time! tions to life’s quandaries, both pertinent and sweatsocks and a silver jacket and a peace sign impertinent. And then the next day i woke up at necklace and rubber sunglasses, swilling the Love, 12:15 in the afternoon with a bunch of change cheapest of all possible champagnes at one Nørb stuck to my ass (i don’t understand it myself. o’clock in the afternoon, under the ludicrous pre- First i thought it was a bunch of scabs, then, when text of writing an advice column??? WELL, The second letter is also from Rev. Nørb, from i got up, i naturally started picking at them, and FINE, THEN!!! PERHAPS HE DID!!! But did Green Bay, Wisconsin, who writes: they all fell off and landed on the floor, and he do it while EATING JUSTICE LEAGUE™ turned out to be money. Hmmm. Perhaps they FRUIT SNACKS??? Ha! Exactly! (although, Dear Rev. Nørb: WERE scabs, which, in a miracle of science so shamefully, Warhol probably wouldn’tve Why don’t women basketball players shave their stupendous as to virtually require an act of faith bombed out as severely as i did on the Justice heads, or get crewcuts, or something? Why do to believe, mutated into cold hard cash upon their League Trivia Puzzle™ on the back of the box... they always wear their hair pulled back in a stu- departure from my corpus delecti. I’M HEM- the Justice League Trivia Puzzle™ is in the form pid-looking and surely-not-particularly-func- MORRAGHING MONEY! Much like the of six fill-in-the-blank questions, with the blank tional ponytail? Are they afraid that if they shave Milwaukee Bucks) and realized that in about ten spaces numbered in such a fashion as to decode their heads, we’ll think they’re all lesbians? I minutes some guys in a van are going to be the JUSTICE LEAGUE’S SECRET MES- mean, don’t we think that already? pounding on my door, demanding that i “ball the SAGE™ when finished... as someone who owns jack” and such, and that i really had nothing to the first hundred-plus issues of the original Your Biggest Fan, write about and no time to write it. So, being of Justice League of America™ series [every issue Rev. Nørb sound mind and body (in purely a de jour sense, from roughly 1960-1972], plus every issue since Green Bay, WI i can assure you), i’m doing what any bewildered the 1987 relaunch, i’ve got to admit my change- and frustrated advice columnist in my place scabbed ass blushed red with shame when i Dear Nørb: would do: Writing this column, such as it is, in couldn’t figure out that the answer to “Justice Put some fucking pants on. rb the nude. I dunno why. It just seems to make League’s orbiting space station is the Love,
ø everything all better. BUT WAIT! I’VE PULLED ______” wasn’t “S-A-T-T-E-L-L-I-T-E” [it’s Nørb THIS GAG BEFORE! Mere nudity won’t cut it “WATCHTOWER”]... i’m like “god dammit, i with an erudite bunch such as yourself! The ante can’t believe that’s how you really spell ‘satel- Our third letter is also from Rev. Nørb, who must be upped! The pot sweetened! The plot lite’!” ...i eventually had to peek at the answers, writes: thickened! Ha! One second for further deviance! when my secret message began to look like it was Okay! Better! I am NOW writing this column written in Welsh or something... then i tried to be Dear Rev. Nørb: Rev. N nude EXCEPT FOR a fashionable silver jacket i real impish and naughty by answering the ques- In a recent Razorcake™ review of the got out of the Young Ladies department at tion “Wonder Woman’s strengths are flight, Fragments/Modern Machines split CD, staffer Target™, and a pair of Newport™ cigarette deflector bracelets and ______” with “Aphid Peewit,” a Minnesota resident, speaks sweatsocks (which have a bit of history behind “PUSSY,” but, since the real answer turned out to highly of the Minnesota Twins baseball club, at them; consult your back issues of Punk Planet for be “LASSO,” both words had enough letters in the expense of the Milwaukee Brewers organiza- further discourse). That’s even funnier! And, common that my Secret Message wasn’t messed tion, and its former owner, Commissioner Bud curiously, I LOOK DAMN GOOD LIKE THIS! up enough to be funny. LOOK, WHERE ARE Selig. I’ve had problems sleeping ever since. Wait! Wait! I must look even SILLIER! Okay! YOU GOING WITH THIS??? Cripes, let’s cut Can you help? Now i have a pink plastic peace sign necklace on. the buffoonery, and get to this issue’s letters. Our And i’ve added a pair of yellow and blue rubber first mailbag entry comes from Rev. Nørb, of If i had known i was gonna be sitting around on Elvis/Plastic Man™ type sunglasses as well! Green Bay, Wisconsin, who writes: my naked heinie all day, i wouldn’tve eaten all Fuck, i look absolutely stunning! You’d have to that bar pizza last night, see it to believe it! Rrrrrowr!!! WAIT! WAIT! Dear Rev. Nørb, Rev. Nørb THE CHAMPAGNE!!! Now i’m lurching I seem to be having problems convincing mem- Green Bay, WI around the house in a silver jacket, Newport™ bers of the opposite sex to take off their clothes sweatsocks, a pink plastic peace sign necklace, and roll around the kitchen floor with me. My Dear Nørb: rubber Elvis sunglasses, and a $3.49 bottle of minister seems to think that a joke involving both Excellent letter. I, too, reacted with great con- Andre™ pink champagne! Why this is relevant to old-school punk and medieval Europe would sternation at Mr. Peewit’s remarks; and, though you i have no idea! BUT WAIT! IT GETS EVEN help matters along somewhat. Can you help me? this is hardly the ideal time and place for a long- BETTER! MY HAIR IS DYED PURPLE! Or, winded (and serious) dissertation on profession- more correctly, my hair WAS dyed purple. I Your Biggest Fan, al sports, i don’t have any amusing anecdotes dunno. I always wanted to have purple hair. I had Rev. Nørb about German hookers or masturbation to relate it for about forty-eight hours (just long enough to Green Bay, WI this issue, so, you know, why the fuck not. enrage my ex-Marine father. Ain’t it cool you can Therefore: Peewit, you ignorant slut: Your lems as it is}. So, anyway, Rhyth gives unconscionable propagation of the guy a copy of the CD, makes his the popular “Selig = Satan” pitch {so to speak}, waggles a Ruckus myth vis-a-vis the attempted Log here and there for effect, and the extermination of the Minnesota PA guy – who plays crap like the fuck- Twins baseball team might play ing Promise Ring and shit during well in the lower forty-eight games – tells him “nah, we don’t want states, but the sad fact of the any of that punk rock stuff here.” Like, matter is, AS ANY BASEBALL YEAH, WE WOULDN’T WANT TO FAN IN THE UPPER MID- DO ANYTHING THAT MIGHT WEST WOULD KNOW, the ALIENATE THE FANS, WOULD MINNESOTA TWINS WE??? {I guess maybe that’s only ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY funny if you’re a Brewers fan. DESERVED TO BE SLATED Actually, it’s more sad than any- FOR CONTRACTION. thing}]); their minor league system is Absolutely. Positively. Without a joke, the quality players they let get question. For those not In The away is astonishing (Vi–a, Cirillo, Know (or, more likely, not In Matheny, i guess Jose Valentin if you The Care), i’ll set the stage believe in that sort of thing, Burnitz i here: Commissioner of Baseball suppose is the exception that proves Bud Selig™ was the former the rule), GMs and coaches are rotat- owner of the Milwaukee ed like envelope stock, there is NO Brewers. The team is still owned HOPE and none forthcoming, the by his family, which more or fans are hostile and dwindling – all less kinda means it’s still owned is, essentially, lost. Point ceded. Bud by him, even though he’s the Selig also got Milwaukee area tax- Commissioner, ergo prohibited payers to foot the bill for a snazzy from officially owning the team. new stadium, which people wound Point ceded. The Seligs, as fate up getting killed trying to complete, would have it, have essentially then when they built it the roof run the team into the ground. The leaked, then when they had the All- Brewers haven’t had a winning Star Game there it wound up end- season in over ten years, haven’t ing in a tie. In short, everything been to the playoffs in two Bud Selig touches turns to shit. decades, never won a World Point ceded. The Minnesota Series, and very likely will never Twins, however, have built a playoff even break .500 again, ever. Point team thru players drafted and ceded. The increasingly unpopular brought up thru their minor league Selig family have almost become system, won a World Series in each poster children for how NOT to of the last two decades, and have Rev. N run a baseball team (their sage become a shimmery-like example embracement of the Rally of how TO run a baseball team on a Rabbit/Rhythm Chicken™ limited payroll. Point ceded. Where notwithstanding [and, since i this all begins to devolve into broached the subject, and still have tabloid-styled hoo-hah (“hoosh- ø some champagne left, i’ll relate an wash,” if you will) is on the matter rb tangential anecdote here: As you may or of contraction: Major League may not know, a band i am in once recorded a Baseball is currently stretched beyond a sustain- song titled “I Want to Get to Third Base with Bleach:$5 able capacity, like Suzi Quatro getting fisted by You.” As you may further know or not know, it Purple Hair Dye: $5 Warren Sapp. Too many teams, not enough fans. has become customary in many baseball stadia Rubber Elvis There had been talk over the last coupla years of for the PA dude to play snippets of certain songs getting rid of a few teams, among them – you at various appropriate moments of games – f’r Sunglasses: $1.49 guessed it – the Minnesota Twins. Here’s where instance, should a home-team batter be walked Plastic Peace Sign i got the beef: To anyone who doesn’t live with- by an opposing pitcher, the PA guy is likely to Necklace: 99¢ in a few hundred miles of Minneapolis, the play “I’m Walkin’” by Fats Domino, or “Walk notion of contracting the Twins seems as unwar- This Way” by Aerosmith, or “These Boots Are Junior Misses’Silver ranted and vile as the Minnesotans continually Made for Walkin” by Nancy Sinatra, or similar Jacket: $12.99 claim it is. I mean, here’s the Brewers – worst cornball hijinx. Now, in my travels, it has been Justice League Fruit team in the league, completely mismanaged, made quite apparent to me that NO stadium any- total jokes – and here’s the Twins – playoff team, where ever has anything to play when the home Snacks: $1.79 well-managed, great history – and because team hits a triple. Needless to say, this is where i Champagne: $3.49 Milwaukee got conned into buying their team a come in: Brilliantly putting two and two togeth- Pants: n/a new stadium and Minnesota didn’t, it’s the er and coming up with three, i decide that it only Twins who have their collective necks on the makes sense to volunteer Boris The Sprinkler’s Not rooting for the collective chopping block. IT SEEMS SO touching power ballad, “I Want to Get to Third baseball team that SEEMINGLY WRONG, DOESN’T IT??? Base with You,” as PA fodder for the rare occa- sells something called Further adding to the negative aura of Osama sion a Brewer actually raps out a three-bagger, Bud Selig is the notion that he wants the Twins and i ask The Rhyth if he’ll lay a copy of the CD the “Gelati-Da” at axed in hopes that baseball fans in Minnesota containing said tune on the PA guy, in hopes that their stadium: will be then forced to turn to... you guessed it... my thinly veiled Nervous Eaters ripoff will have Priceless Brewers games for ball-diamond succor. I mean, the “honor” of being played at Brewers games Bud Selig couldn’t play the role of dastardly Jew {like Boris don’t have enough credibility prob- any better if it was assigned to him 17 Dear MD: BOUGHT ABOUT TEN THOUSAND SEA- This is actually a damn good question. by SON TICKETS THAT THEY COULDN’T the WWE™, right? Well, HA! I refute these alle- EARTH’S GREATEST ROLLER! Think about EVEN GIVE AWAY. Which is the heart of my it: the concept veritably boggles the mind. I’m gations! If Bud Selig only did ONE thing right in beef (i know, i know, i keep saying that, but mine his life – which is actually pretty likely – that one inclined to say Derek... but maybe it’s Woody? is a beef with many hearts): MINNESOTA Damn! I didn’t realize how hard it would be to thing of rightness was to propose the elimination SPORTS FANS SUCK SHIT AND ARE A of the Minnesota Twins!!! AND HERE IS THE answer questions that weren’t actually written by BUNCH OF FAGS, PERIOD. They have myself. What has man wrought? Now i’m sitting ONE FACT THAT NO ONE EVER MEN- absolutely no interest in their teams until/unless TIONS, WHICH IS THE ROOT OF MY at my computer in a silver jacket, no pants, wang said teams are in playoff contention. Now, sure, flopping around, unsheathed anus despoiling all ANGUISH: WHEN THE IDEA OF CON- there’s always gonna be more fans in the stands TRACTING THE TWINS FIRST CAME UP, it comes in contact with, pink plastic peace sign when a team is doing well; that’s not so much necklace waggling to and fro, Newport™ sweat- THERE WAS NOBODY GOING TO THEIR about the fickleness of fans as it is about the shit- FUCKING GAMES. NOBODY. I have pictures socks hanging limply acrost my ankles, rubber tiness of the product on the field. However, i will Elvis sunglasses confusing me to no end, pink to prove it, except i can’t find the god damn say, with all the misplaced civic pride i can things. I went to a Twins game in 1998 and there champagne almost depleted, Justice League™ muster, that at least in Wisconsin when people fruit snack wrappers littering the floor... AND, couldn’tve been more than one or two thousand say that “attendance is down,” there’s still at people there. Seriously. Seriously. Dead serious TO TOP IT ALL OFF, I’M LISTENING TO MY least, you know, 15,000 real live human people BAY CITY ROLLERS CD! Surely i have seriously. Walking into the Metrodome was like who bother to show up and root root root for the walking into a library. People were speaking in evolved into something alternately more and less home team – not two thousand humans and than human... and yet... yet ...yet, even from the whispers, so as not to distract the players. It was 10,000 corporate phantoms. Of course, now that absolutely the most surreal thing i’ve ever seen lofty perch of my mutated state, the answer to the Twins are doing well again, their games are your question seems baffling. I mean, surely in my life. I brought the pictures to work, (more or less) packed. At the Brewers/Twins showed my boss, showed my dad, it was Earth’s Greatest Roller MUST be a member of game i went to in Milwaukee last summer, Twins the Bay City Rollers – i mean, “Saturday Night” absolutely amazing. 50,000 empty blue seats. I fans outnumbered Brewers fans two to one – mean, i can not possibly overstate how empty the is a damn fine song, and, in a supreme moment Rev. N since they’re winning, Twins fans will now, of who’d-a-thunk-it-ness, the keyboard part to Humptydome was. Perhaps i’ll just repeat apparently, drive 300 miles for a game – WHEN myself over and over again! EMPTY! EMPTY! “Take It to the Hole” off of Rev. Nørb’s tell-it- THEY COULDN’T EVEN DRIVE DOWN- like-it-is Earth’s Greatest Rocker! CD is clearly EMPTY! Nobody there! NOBODY!!! The place TOWN FOR A GAME FIVE YEARS AGO. was so empty that i, Rev. Nørb, Earth’s Greatest derived from the guitar riff to the Bay City And, again, the truly rankling thing is that NO Rollers’ “Money Honey” (which is more or less
Rocker AND Earth’s Worst Athlete GOT A ø ONE KNOWS how deserving the Twins were of their only other really good song) – but, yet, i
BALL. Now, you’re saying, hmmm, Rev. Nørb, rb contraction. THE SAD FACT OF THE MAT- find no quick answers to my inquiry as to who – surely you exaggerate for effect: Were the atten- TER IS that Minnesota doesn’t DESERVE a dance as legitimately as dire at a Twins games as or whom – was the greatest among them. Derek? quality franchise like the Twins. Similarly, Woody? Les? Eric? Alan? Whom among them you claim it to be, surely we would have heard of Milwaukee doesn’t deserve a shitty franchise such a phenomenon thru the media. After all, the was truly the Alpha Roller, the cock of the walk, like the Brewers. WHAT I WOULD DO IF I the Roller To End All Rollers? Perhaps the Bay tiny crowds of 3,000-4,000 for Expos games at WERE BUD SELIG: 1. Change my name to Park Olympique in Montreal have been well City Rollers stand indivisible, with liberty and “Bruno Deluxe” 2. Contract the following under- tartan plaid for all, and exist only as a unit, documented, as have the similarly tiny crowds in performing franchises: Montreal Expos, Florida Florida, etc... and, while, yes, it was a well- unable to be scrutinized on the individuated Marlins, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Milwaukee level? Hmmm. Yeah. That’s got to be right. I known fact that attendance at Twins games was Brewers; 3. Move Minnesota Twins to “poor,” it surely could not have been poor on the mean, there never were any Bay City Rollers Milwaukee; 4. Rename Minnesota Twins solo albums, were there? I mean, if there were, order of magnitude which you describe, or we’d “Milwaukee Brewers”; 5. Move franchise to NL know about it. Ja? Nein. Nein, nein, nein! they would, like, have to look like the Kiss™ Central, preserving Brewers-Cubs rivalry; 6. solo albums, but with plaid backgrounds instead Homicide, even! The reason NO ONE KNOWS Shoot myself. Thanks for listening. how absolutely minuscule the crowds at Twins of black... but there aren’t. Are there? No... no... games really were like five years ago is because, the Bay City Rollers have far too much integrity Love (Supporting evidence: Their existence was first well, first off, there weren’t many witnesses, but, Nørb more importantly, attendance at baseball games made known to American youths via teaser ads isn’t calculated like it is at football games: For placed on the backs of wrappers for, of all things, Our final letter actually comes from someone Wacky Packages™ stickers. “THEY’RE COM- football games, attendance is, amazingly, how who is not Rev. Nørb of Green Bay WI, who is, many people actually attended. That is to say, ING! THE BAY CITY ROLLERS!” I thought FYI, still sitting around drinking champagne they were advertising a local roller derby team or how many tickets were used. For baseball without pants on. games, it’s just how many tickets were SOLD. At something) to be played against themselves this the Twins game in question, the attendance was way... the Bay City Rollers are COLLECTIVE- Dear Rev. Nørb, LY Earth’s Greatest Rollers, but yet are not given as something like ten or eleven thousand. I have a two part question. First part: If you, Rev. It was, cross my fucking heart, maybe a TENTH ranked in singles competition, making this dis- Nørb, are the world’s greatest rocker, who in the course much more thorny. Hmmmm. Well, there of that. Now, ten or eleven thousand people is hell is the world’s greatest roller? Second part: I still shitty, as far as attendance at a professional WAS Linda Ronstadt; she had that album cover recently quit my job and like a lot of middle age photo where she was wearing the blue satin jack- sporting event goes, but it doesn’t quite bear the post highschool graduates of the class of 1985, same tragic heft as, say ONE or TWO thousand et and lacing up roller skates... HEY! WAIT A don’t know what the hell it is I want to be when MINUTE! I just realized that i’m thirty-seven people does – which, of course, begs the ques- I grow up. I’ve thought about teaching, but I tion of who was buying those tickets, then? The years old, and have NEVER had sex with a girl wondered what you think. I can’t be a bartender in a satin jacket and roller skates. Well, what the answer being, of course, “the suits.” Minneapolis the rest of my life, now can I? has a corporate culture to it that is – thankfully! fuck?! You would think that SOMEWHERE in America, there’s a girl sitting at a computer typ- – pretty much absent in Wisconsin. The Twins Signed were able to report attendances of “respectably ing up a column wearing nothing BUT a satin Some Mysterious Dude Who Is Not Me Who jacket and roller skates, thinking that her life’s horrible” figures – ten or eleven thousand – in Did Not Sign His Name lieu of SHOCKINGLY AMAZINGLY HORRI- been nothing but a waste up to this point because BLE figure like one or two thousand because she hasn’t gotten it on with a guy in rubber Elvis BIG MINNEAPOLIS CORPORATIONS
19 glasses, a girls’ silver jacket, pink peace sign necklace, sweatsocks, and whitish-purple hair. I Gang Green button from ShopKo™ when i was a kid, but, after the Boston punk band of the got a sack/do the do the do the do the do the OW! guess it’s all about distro, man! Yeah... Linda do the do the Dave Roller! Just a big white Ronstadt. No, wait... did Linda Ronstadt really same name emerged with their killer tracks on the Boston Not L.A. compilation [still the h/c boy/but he could give all hell/he couldn’ta been roll any harder than, say, Shaun Cassidy or Leif too good though/cause we got him from the Garrett? And what about Davy Jones? Davy comp by which all others shall be judged!], i sent my button to Mike Dean, their drummer. I’m CFL/do the do the do the do the do the OW! do Jones is probably the King Daddy Prime Roller the do the Dave Roller! Dothedothedothenow of ‘em all! Davy Jones! No, wait... wouldn’t sure he was fucking thrilled). Dave Roller used to do this goofy dance whenever he got a sack, DothedothedothebabyDothedothedothenowDoth Davy Jones just be a TV version of Paul edothedothebabyDothedothedothenowDothedot McCartney? Paul McCartney, i’ll say Paul back before that type of thing became obnox- iously commonplace. Bearing in mind that the hedothebabyDothedothedothenowDothedothedo McCartney... no, wait, i just remembered, when i thebabydo the do the do the do the do the OW! was nine years old, i made my first guitar out of guy was a huge white oaf from the South, please visualize the following: Huge redneck dude in do the do the Dave Roller! He used to do com- a two-by-four and a cigar box, and strung it with mercials/for Putzer’s Big & Tall (a local big rubber bands, and i used to play along to that part football regalia looms joyously over crushed quarterback, then men’s clothing store... the TV spots would fea- of the song “Venus & Mars Rock ture some properly effete Show” by Paul McCartney & Wings announcer politely saying things that goes “in my green metal suit i’m like “all in-stock men’s suits preparing to shoot down the city... marked down—”, then Dave and the ring at the end of my nose Roller would be running around makes me look rawther pretty” behind him, waving his hands in because, for whatever reason, my the air screaming “MARK IT rubber bands were in tune with the DOWN, BO-AH! MARK IT bass... so that doesn’t ROLL, then, DOWN!” in the guy’s face) he’d that would ROCK. It’s “Venus & holler “whatza matter bo-ah? Mars ROCK Show,” not “Venus & You standin’ in a hole?!!” /do Mars ROLL Show.” Rock ich nicht
the do the do the do the do the Rev. N Roll. Therefore, it can’t be Paul OW! do the do the Dave Roller! McCartney (what did Paul ya sorta stand right there/point McCartney say when he took acid your fingers in space/look at the discount chain store? “I Am down at your partner/and kinda the Wal-Mart™!”) (further, did run in place/do the do the do you hear about the Beatles song the do the do the OW! do the ø off of Revolver that Peter Fonda do the Dave Roller! (key rb inspired when he took acid in change) well if you don’t like Wisconsin? “Cheesehead, dancing/then never fear/ Dave Cheesehead”)... so back to Davy only did his dance/’bout two Jones? No, wait... isn’t it weird how times a year/do the do the do everyone talks about the Monkees the do the do the OW! do the being a TV ripoff of Hard Day’s do the Dave Roller! (etc.) Night, when, if you think about it, ...okay, granted, he was no the Monkees were actually REAL- Alan Page or Carl Eller... but, LY ripping off Elvis’ sixties movie god dammit, those two sacks career? ELVIS! ELVIS IS THE a year were the goin’ most!!! ANSWER! ELVIS PRESLEY IS Anyway, yes, that is my final EARTH’S GREATEST ROLLER! I answer. Dave Roller is state for the record that, emphatically, Earth’s GREATEST Roller! Elvis Presley is my final answer as to As to the second part of your whom Earth’s Greatest Roller is!!! question, seeing as you gradu- Don’t sass a man without pants! From ated high school in the ‘80s as this i shall not waver, quaver, quiver or i did, therefore essentially shirk!!! I am indefatigable! Steadfast! grew up being told “there are Resolute! Actually, no, i take it back: no jobs for you, there never An answer of “Elvis” would not be will be any jobs for you, get offensive enough to Minnesota sports some insipid menial gig some- fans; Earth’s Greatest Roller is... where, expect to be stuck at it (ruckus log activated drumroll, for the rest of your life, grind please)... #74, defensive tackle DAVE ROLLER out a measly existence and be of THE GREEN BAY PACKERS!!! Seriously, thankful you got that much”, i seriously... Dave Roller ruled! He played for the points both index fingers skyward and starts doing this wonderfully would say that yes, you can Packers for a few years in the ‘70s, back when AND WILL likely be a bartender for the rest of their defensive line (Mike McCoy, Dave Roller... inane hop-jig-run-in-place thing as the crowd goes wild. You’d actually have to see the foot- your life (i can personally assure you of one i can’t remember the other two guys... but it was thing: job security!). However, if that doesn’t back when teams still let caucasians play the work to really appreciate it, it was absolutely the most retarded/great celebration type move ever, pan out, my only other suggestion is front four [which brings up a peculiar issue of Commissioner of Baseball. race and sports: Why is it that the offensive line probably because it was so devoid of funkiness. Dave Roller’s dance was so superb that i actual- in football these days is always white guys and Love, the defensive line is always black guys??? It’s ly wrote a song called “Do the Dave Roller,” which my band’s guitar player refused to play Nørb like they just arbitrarily chose to assign people (Questions and pants can be sent to me at tasks based on race, to foment racial hatred and (and refuses to this day), the lyrics of which are as follows: There was a man who played/ for the [email protected], or PO Box 1173, theoretically more inspired performance. If any- Green Bay, WI 54305 USA Earth. I one has a legitimate theory on this, i’m all ears) Green Bay Pack/he used to do a little day-ance/ earned the nickname “Gang Green” (i had a big every time he
21 , I’mI’mI’m AgainstAgainstAgainst ItItIt
CDs are over-priced. Q: How much did these shyster A: About 500 million dollars. labels and chains bend us consumers over for? Universal Music Group, Inc., and As with most ravenous hoard- UMG Recordings, Inc.; ers of the tuneage, I’m sure most Bertelsmann Music Group, Inc. and of you Razorcakers reading this BMG Music; and Sony Music here column have heard or spoken Entertainment Inc. And just which about all the hoopla going on late- record store chains were fingered? ly pertaining to the recent sales MTS, Inc., Tower Records, decline of compact discs. The rea- Musicland Stores Corp., and Trans son music consumers most com- World Entertainment Corp. This monly agree on is the most obvi- case spearheads from a practice ous one – an uprising trend of record labels used to subsidize the burning CD copies at home. But cost of promoting a CD for retailers then there’s those who say the that agreed to sell it for a “mini- sales are down due to our current mum advertised price” set by the economy, blah blah blah, your labels, aka, Mr. Greedypants price- Momma, yadda yadda yadda, the fixing. The labels argued that they dog ate my homework, and so on. used the program to “help record It seems almost everyone has a stores survive price wars against different reason on the matter, ya competitors that were drastically know? undercutting CD prices.” I always thought CDs were Sure, like these labels give a fat over-priced rounds of plastic to rat’s ass what the competition does begin with, but a newly-discov- to each other once the finished ered, naughty twist to pricing the product leaves their hands. These music medium has been brought are the same labels who were cry- to the consumer’s attention on a ing like lil’ bitches when all that major scale earlier this year. Napster heat was going down. According to the prosecution, it Look, please don’t blow smoke up seems there has been quite a bit of the chimney’s ass, okay? Because price fixing going on between this chimney doesn’t like it. In the record labels and music retailers. end, the labels and retail chains The attorney generals of forty-one agreed to settle the case in order to states, including your pal Dale’s avoid more costly litigation, state of California, filed suit in although neither admitted any August of 2000, alleging that wrongdoing. “A settlement?” you some particular labels and store say, as your cat ears perk up. chains violated antitrust laws “What’s the deal with this settle- when they overcharged con- ment?” Being that these labels and sumers. How much did these shys- chains agreed to settle with the ter labels/chains bend us con- prosecution basically means is that sumers over for? About 500 mil- anyone who purchased a vinyl lion dollars. record, cassette, or compact disc The labels, you ask? Capitol from a retail store between January Records, Inc., EMI Music 1st, 1995, and December 22nd, Distribution, Virgin Records 2000, is eligible for a refund. And America, Inc., and Priority even though it was just the attorney Records LLC; Time Warner, Inc., generals in forty-one states that Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Corp., went to court to win this settlement, WEA, Inc., Warner Music Group, all fifty states in the U.S. are eligi- Inc., Warner Bros. Records, Inc., ble. What really amazes me about Atlantic Recording Corporation, all this is that at the beginning of Elektra Entertainment Group, Inc., January of this year, only about and Rhino Entertainment 30,000 people had filed claims to Company; Universal Music & receive up to $20.00 each in Video Distribution Corporation, refunds. Then, only three weeks 22 later, the number of filed claims What will happen to all of that back to the label and their associ- seemed to be at a time when a risk jumped up to about one million, money if that happens, you ask? ates, including the management taker, such as Sire Record’s thanks to radio commercials, vari- No worries – they already have it and legal reps, not to mention Seymour Stein, had a vision that ous news stories about the settle- figured out for you. Get this load recouping the money used to make this new wave of rock and roll was ment, and a website that con- of crap: “The cash portion of the the album and extravagant touring going to be the record industry’s sumers can use to file their own settlement shall be distributed to costs. The pie graph of money-per- new way of business. Thank god personal claim online to grab their not-for-profit, charitable, govern- unit-sold turns into a circle of tiny for his vision, or the world may share of the $67.4 million payout: mental or public entities in each slivers very quickly. Thus, the dou- have never got a chance to hear or
Oderus: There’s no level to the degree of prostitution I will whore myself out to in order to continue my existence as a fucked-up drunken piece of shit.
Nardwuar: Who are you? fish, is it in the Hard Rock Café? Nardwuar: Oderus, you are Nardwuar: If the guy from Lord Oderus Urungus: I am Oderus Oderus Urungus: It was in there Canadian. What is a Canadian Of The Rings walked out, how Urungus, lead singer of the most before, but they made me take it killing dinosaurs for? would you kill him? dangerous band in this or any other out. But look at that thing [points Oderus Urungus: [Still laughing Oderus Urungus: Which one? universe… Gwar! to his cuttlefish], look at it, drip- at the Dave Brockie picture] Nardwuar: Frodo. Nardwuar: Oderus, the bitch is ping with infected East Nile Virus. Nardwuar: What is a Canadian Oderus Urungus: Oh, I’d fuck back? It’s a beautiful thing, a beautiful killing dinosaurs for? him, then I’d stomp him, that little Oderus Urungus: Yes, the bitch thing. Oderus Urungus: [Laughing] Bag End bugger. (Slymenstra Hymen) is back. She’s Nardwuar: What is your view on Nardwuar: Oderus… Nardwuar: Is there any way to here to claim a bloody vengeance. Viagra? What do you think of Oderus Urungus: What, what? stop a Gwar show? Is there any She wanted to castrate me, chop Viagra? Nardwuar: Why are you killing way to stop a Gwar show? off my penis and put it in a zoo. Oderus Urungus: Well, I don’t the dinosaurs? Oderus Urungus: Yes. Don’t go. Nardwuar: What was she doing need it personally, but if it helps Oderus Urungus: Because they Nardwuar: Tell me about your before? She was in the circus? midgets who are impotent to fuck drove cars. I didn’t like cars. influences. Wendy Williams, how Oderus Urungus: She was in the animals in the yard, then I think it’s Nardwuar: But they are from important is she? circus, the girly freak show circus, a good thing, as long as the animal Alberta, The Badlands? Oderus Urungus: I’ve been influ- doing things in Hollywood, with gives consent. Oderus Urungus: They wore enced by insulin. her Hollywood friends, but now Nardwuar: Oderus, who designs shoes. I don’t like shoes. Nardwuar: Oderus, what are the she’s back. As I said, she wants to your loincloths? Nardwuar: What about the movie similarities between Gwar and chop off my pee pee. Oderus Urungus: He does! Mystery Date, Oderus? Wasn’t that pirates? Nardwuar: Oderus, are you the [Points to another GWAR mem- filmed in Vancouver? Oderus Urungus: Parcheesi and first band ever to spew on the audi- ber] Oderus Urungus: Stupid. I never four rows over on the Jeopardy ence? Nardwuar: Oderus, what do you saw it, I never saw any of the board. Oderus Urungus: No! [Oderus think of when you see this picture movies we were supposedly in, Nardwuar: Oderus, did Gwar then begins to talk in some sort of right here [Nardwuar shows and we never made a fucking once do a show with absolutely no GWAR language] ‘Abba spew on Oderus a picture of Dave Brockie penny. music, just acting it out? audience. Chee ga gu mess shela (aka Oderus) being grabbed in the Nardwuar: Oderus, what are the Oderus Urungus: Yes. I would do cooba. Show ka pluta koko ba. In crotch], of the person Dave new ways to kill people that you my interpretive mime. Would you loyer anus dosa o ka!’ Brockie? What do you think of guys have developed? like to see it? Nardwuar: But you guys have that? Oderus Urungus: Ah, well, it’s Nardwuar: Yes, please. new spew chambers? Oderus Urungus: This person hard to, you know, when you kill Oderus Urungus: [Silence, then Oderus Urungus: Yeah, spew, needs to be killed. Look, touching people so many ways for so many sounds of a beating/struggle] That spewing everywhere. Spew, spew, himself like that, what is that? years, but the more interesting way was JonBenet. spew. Spew on you! What is that shit? He’s fat, he’s fat, that we’re killing people is slowly Nardwuar: Are there any chal- Nardwuar: Oderus, is your cuttle- fat, fat. through alcoholism. lengers to Gwar at all, Oderus? Oderus Urungus: Yes. Marilyn There’s no level to the degree of were in Empire Records! Oderus Urungus: Well, actually, Manson is obviously a very, very prostitution I will whore myself Oderus Urungus: So what? We the hair farmers were using way powerful force. Limp Bizkit and out to in order to continue my exis- raped Liv Tyler in the bathroom, too much hairspray and the ozone Slipknot and Mudvayne. Oh my, tence as a fucked-up drunken piece and it’s not rape if she enjoys it there opened up and as a result we yes. We’re in awe of their power. of shit. halfway through. were born, and as much as we hate Nardwuar: Are you mad about the Nardwuar: Oderus of Gwar, did Nardwuar: What about being in them, we still love them. song “Gwar, what is it good for? Disney fake the moon landing? thirtysomething, that TV show? Nardwuar: So why did you have Absolutely nothing! Gwar!” Did they fake the moon landing? That was pretty good, eh, Oderus? Sebastian Bach of a hair metal Oderus Urungus: [sings] “Gwar! Oderus Urungus: It’s a fake. Oderus Urungus: Oh my God, band in your video? What is it good for, absolutely There isn’t even a moon! Everyone what are you on, anyway? Thirty, Oderus Urungus: You said that nothing!” … and that’s fine with knows it’s made out of cheese. forty, fifty, seventy, eighty, a mil- was the last question! [Oderus me! Nardwuar: Oderus, why did you lion, who gives a shit? grabs Nardwuar’s neck again… Nardwuar: DOA sang that and sink Atlantis? Why innocent peo- Nardwuar: Now, which member screaming ensues] also from Vancouver, Skinny ple? of Gwar ate Jerry Springer? Nardwuar: Ahh! Oh! Oh! Oh, Puppy, Skinny Puppy! Oderus Urungus: You are the most annoying human I’ve ever met! [Oderus then grabs Nardwuar by the neck] Nardwuar: Thank you, Oderus, thank you, I appreciate that. Now, what was it like playing with Thor tonight? Oderus Urungus: Thor is a little heavier than he used to be, but very, very, fun, funny… but he should get rid of the chick. Nardwuar: Oderus, golf. What are the perks of being in Gwar? You play celebrity golf with Tommy Lee? Oderus Urungus: Aren’t you interviewing any of them? [Points to other bandmates] Nardwuar: Well, okay, tell me which one I should talk to? Oderus Urungus: No, shut up. Just interview me, I’m the funny one. Nardwuar: Now tell me about playing golf with Tommy Lee. Oderus Urungus: I didn’t play golf with Tommy Lee. He would- n’t get in the same party with me, he wouldn’t ride around in a golf cart. But I did go to his house and we went to the hot tub, and drowned a child. Nardwuar: Oderus, please tell me about the rest of Gwar, the role- playing game. I wanna play with Gwar. Is there a role-playing game? Oderus Urungus: No. There’s no role-playing game, or is there? I Oderus Urungus: Because I need- Oderus Urungus: I don’t know. Oderus! Doot doola doot doo… don’t know. Look at those guys ed to usher in the era of the rail- The World Maggot. Okay? I’ve got Oderus Urungus: Doot doot! Bye over there looking at me like I’m road. a show to do, could we fuckin’ Ca-nanananana-da! crazy. There’s games, there’s prod- Nardwuar: What exactly does the hurry this up and finish this shit? ucts, there’s merchandise. Be future hold for Gwar? What does Nardwuar: Last question for you, -Nardwuar assured we sell millions of them the future hold? Oderus. To hear and watch this interview and we never see a fucking penny. Oderus Urungus: Pain, death, Oderus Urungus: Thank you. go to
25 One man’s hoosh-wash is another man’s science! One man’s slick-slack is another man’s savior! Ruckus is in the liver of the beholder!
The Dinghole Reports housing at its finest! It’s just that Jaja Dom rolls finished, it will be retractable into two “back- By the Rhythm Chicken off the tongue a little more easily than “Maly pack units” and easily transportable on the trams (Commentary by Francis Funyuns) Kurczaka Mieszkanie 22/32.” and buses. Once Ruckus Thomas hand-delivers [Edited by Dr. Sicnarf] the Chickenhead in three weeks, I will be fully [Indeed, Mr. Chicken. You always choose a poised to give these pierogi people a heavy Czesc? Dzien dobry. Hello? You guys there? coop of extraordinary nature! Now, what we’re onslaught of Wisconsin rhythm ruckus! Chicken to Funyuns and Sicnarf, you read me? all waiting to hear about are your exploits of AUDIO-PABST, if you will! Until then, my ruckus and mayhem in the Rzeszpospolita research continues. (Is that you, Rhythm Chicken? Did you make it Polska! –Dr. S.] to Poland? Are you bathing in kiel- [Please explain to us what this basa yet? –F.F.) “research” entails. What have you learned? –Dr. S.] [By golly, I do believe the ringmas- ter of ruckus has made it! –Dr. S.] Our first major discovery occurred while observing pedestrian social Of course I made it! This is my first habits. Two normal strangers pass- Dinghole Report from Krakow, ing each other on the street will not Poland! From Eastern Europe! From say “Czesc!” (Hi). They will not a post-communist region! From the give each other the “howdy” nod of other side of the FEEEEEE- the head. They will not make eye RICKIN’ WORLD! Na zdrowie! contact. They will not acknowledge each other’s presence AT ALL! (Holy chivalry, Mr. Chicken! You’ve People at the bus and tram stops really done it! You moved to Poland! WILL NOT talk to each other, but, if What the cluck is up with you and they do, it is in very quiet polite the Hen? –F.F.) whispers. Everyone seems to follow a strict code of “minding their own [Indeed, Mr. Chicken, we were business” and do whatever possible about to write you off as McNuggets not to draw attention to themselves. by now. –Dr. S.] (The stumbling staggering winos appear to be exempt, and somewhat Well, we’re not on anyone’s menu, great in number.) Communism fell yet, but we remain cautious! The here about twelve or thirteen years Hen and I flew out of Chicago on ago, yet socially they act as if they Dec. 30th and arrived here in are still under Stalin’s thumb. I have Krakow at 5:30 P.M. on NEW noted an immense consumption of YEAR’S EVE! Our Polish contact, vodka, yet aside from the harmless, the mighty Tomek, met the Hen and stumbling, staggering winos, I have I at the airport and took us right to yet to observe any substantial ruckus our new nest. Seven months ago I of any kind! True, there are street left my luxurious home in musicians who pander to tourists in Milwaukee (the “Nest”) to live in the Old Town area. However, their my Northern Wisconsin “wood- tame folksy music and their overly shed” until the Hen and I moved to sedating presence and posture are our new home to start the new year. FAR from ruckus-inducing. These We now live in what I have recently people have taken warmly to their dubbed the “Jaja Dom” (pronounced newfound capitalism. They love “ya-ya-dome”) which roughly translates to the their new Levi’s and slurp down McDonald’s “egg house.” (Yeah! How are they responding to your thun- milkshakes while waiting in line to see 8 Mile. derous ways? –F.F.) They’re all quite familiar with Chicago, but (Wow, so now you’re living in a house again? seem to have had no exposure whatsoever to the –F.F.) Ok, I’ve been here for twenty-five days thus far, legends of ruckus, which I now refer to as and I’m almost finished with my research stage. “Wisconsinism.” Veganism? Reaganism? Well, no. Our comfortable little apartment, in I have yet to secure my new instruments of Penguinism? NO WAY, MAN! WISCONSIN- reality, is one unit in a building of seventy-two ruckus, but they will soon be at hand. After my ISM! My Langenscheidt’s Polish/English pock- units. Our building is one of about twelve iden- last American campaign of “Bigger Is Way et dictionary has no Polish word for ruckus! The tical buildings, all gray and splattered with graf- Better!” I’ve begun designing my new down- closest entry is “rucksack.” Yeah, maybe I can fiti. This is former-communist sized Polish version of the Chickenkit. When wow them with my most untame RUCKSACK? 26 The Polish language doesn’t even have the short Dinghole Report #29: Paint Me, Ruck-asso! Chickenkit going and you retrieve your “u” vowel sound! When they see the word (Rhythm Chicken sighting #X1) Chickenhead soon. You really need to crank out “ruckus,” they ask me what “root-skoos” is! Yes, this is about sighting #X1. Until I am able some new ruckus over there. These “flashback” ROOT-SKOOS? IT’S RUCKUS! I knew when I to retrieve my sighting documentation from reports are getting kind of boring. Maybe Todd came here that I would be a missionary bringing America, each new report will receive a tempo- and Sean can just start printing Dinghole Reruns my gift of ruckus to those less privileged, but rary sighting number variable. Algebraic ruckus, till you get your act together. –Dr. S.] just now am I beginning to realize the enormos- indeed! So, Captain Foolhardy was my roadie ity of this mission! It’s been over a decade since for this particular tour in the summer of ‘99. He Hey, do you want quality or quantity?!! their communist regime fell and yet they still was finding comfort in taking schwiggers can’t look at each other on the street. I am com- straight from the bottle of Fleischmann’s gin (Looks like we’re getting neither. –F.F.) ing to the scientific conclusion that this is (you know, the GOOD stuff!) between tour because of the lack of “something to look at.” stops. We rolled through Egg Harbor, WI, and [Okay, Mr. Chicken. Why don’t you just tell us decided to hatch ruckus in the Harbor. On an a little more about your new habitat and we’ll [Scientific conclusion? Isn’t ruckus a form of island in the middle of the main intersection in call it a night? –Dr. S.] rebellion against sci- ence? –Dr. S.] Hey! I never promised anyone more than one On the contrary! One report per issue! man’s hoosh-wash is another man’s science! (Then what about that One man’s slick-slack is issue with that lame-ass another man’s savior! “Ballpark Rabbit Ruckus is in the liver of Reader”? I don’t remem- the beholder! Mind the ber there being a gap! Be kind, rewind! Dinghole Report in Turn your head and THAT issue? –F.F.) cough! [Actually, I just think you (Settle down, there, ran off to Poland to Chicken. You’re losing escape the embarrass- us in your hoosh-wash ment of that whole Rally philosophy! –F.F.) Rabbit scene. Maybe the Milwaukee Brewers [I think he’s starting to won’t be able to track shed some light on that you down in your “Jaja aforementioned Dom.” –Dr. S.] “Wisconsinism.” –Dr. S.] Oh, sorry guys. I gotta fly. Tomek just got here (Okay, Chicken. Stop and he’s taking us to our clucking around. What first Polish punk show. the hell do “hoosh- We’re going to see wash,” “slick-slack,” Apatia and Zlodzieje and “philly-sticks” Rowerow. After tonight mean? –F.F.) town was one of the many “artists” seen in Door my research stage is complete. Tomorrow, I County sitting in front of his easel, creating yet move on to my production and experimentation [Yeah, I’m still curious what a “dinghole” is. another generic watercolor classic small town stage of my current mission. I will not rest until –Dr. S.] scene that the Chicago types just can’t seem to Poland is fully “Wisconsinized!”…….Oh! I pay enough for! Captain Foolhardy and I threw almost forgot. A few weeks ago we took a short SILENCE, or it’s a kilo of alum up BOTH your together the Chickenkit right there on the island, train ride to the small town of Oswiecim, more dingholes! No more hoosh-wash outta you in the middle of the intersection, just 3 FEET in commonly known by its German name, slick-slacks! My dinghole is BULGING with front of the future Norman Rockwell. I pulled Auschwitz. There, in the below-zero wind and Polish philly-sticks, my Chickenhead is stuck in on the Chickenhead and pounded out a good blizzard conditions I was pleasantly surprised to my parents’ basement in Krakow, Wisconsin, two minutes of rock ruckus followed by another see a fuckin’ skate shop! THE AUSCHWITZ and I’m without a drumset here in Krakow, two minutes of ruckus rock! Motorists honked, SKATE SHOP! Dobranoc! Poland, a land completely VOID OF RUCKUS! slowed down, and yelled out of their windows. Buck, buck, buck,… BUCCAW!!! The Captain and I were snickering aloud as we (You know, Rev. Nørb hardly fits the Chicken’s hurriedly threw the drums in my car and sped Polish stereotype. –F.F.) (He’s digressing again. Doctor, I think he needs off. At the next tour stops we noticed that we your help. –F.F.) forgot my foot pedal in front of the painter! (see [Yeah, no more than Ben Weasel fits the Fleischmann’s above) SHICKEN! FUCKUS! Australian stereotype. –Dr. S.] [Perhaps this is that “root-skoos” he was talking When we returned to Egg Harbor the pedal was about. For this particular Polish ailment, I would still sitting three feet in front of Poopcasso. I ran (Screeching Digeridoo, indeed! –F.F.) prescribe for him to deliver another Dinghole and retrieved my pedal and noticed that the Report. –Dr. S.] painter just ignored me. Captain Foolhardy then [email protected] informed me that the painter not once acknowl- www.rhythmchicken.com Is THAT what you want? Sure, you two are all edged his own personal Rhythm Chicken con- comfy back in Pabstland while I’m stuck in the cert, squelching any and all reaction he may p.s. The Polish word for chicken is “kurcze” or kielbasa-capitol with NO proper tools to incite have felt compelled to display. He acted as sometimes “kurczaka.” I’m thinking of renam- mass ruckus! Fine! Here’s your #*@! Dinghole though I WAS NEVER THERE! Only now am I ing myself for my Polish gigs from Rytm Report! starting to realize the possibility of his Polish Kurcze to “Scared of Kurczaka!” ethnicity! (Oops! I forgot to send him his Pabst! I wonder [Scared of Chicken? –Dr. S.] how the Zywiec is treating him? –F.F.) {Yup, gin makes ya sin! –Ruckus Thomas} –The Rhythm Chicken [Personally, I hope you get that Polski 27 Swinging Door Conversations
Seth Swaaley
HAVE A FEW DRINKS AND YOU’VE GOT SYM PATHY POURING OUT OF THE VEINS.
over at the sink and remembered “Well, then why don’t you try Joyce threw the remote to the DE TOX Joyce’s orders before she’d left for doing it? I mean the fuckin’ shit- floor. She rolled over, faced the - work in the morning: wash the man was in again.” other direction and closed her dishes and make the bed. He put “The shitman?” Carl said. eyes. At the de-tox center they were the beer down and did a half-ass “You know who he is. The guy “You’re going to sleep?” Carl bringing in the first one of the day. job of straightening out the pil- I told you about last week. He asked. A woman nurse wearing a blue lows. He placed the sheets and comes in three or four times a “Just closing my eyes for a lit- blouse and white pants walked a comforter under the mattress. The week. At eight every morning. tle. If I’m not up by eight, wake man over to a metal-framed cot sink was stacked high with a He’s always shitting in his pants. me up.” alongside a wall. She pulled back week’s worth of dirty plates, pans, He sits down at the table and every “Yeah, sure,” he said dejectedly. the sheets. Carl recognized her. bowls, and silverware. It could time I walk by the booth I smell it. She worked the day shift. She was wait till later. Today he pulled out his money Carl grabbed a couple of twen- the only nurse who had a nice fig- Carl picked up the newspaper and there were brown stains on the ty dollar bills from the dresser ure. Her long brown hair fell down he’d bought earlier in the morning bills. I had to get my boss. I don’t drawer, scribbled out a half-legi- to the top of her ass, and you could and sat down. The headline on the even know why he lets him in. ble note, WENT TO BAR, and tell she was well endowed behind front-page read, “MASS WITH- “The people that come in the taped it on the TV. He walked out that blouse. Carl had never seen DRAWAL.” It had something to morning are nuts. There has to be the door and down the two flights the guy before. He was skinny and do with the number of people in some hospital around that lets of stairs. black and his dark eyes seemed to the U.S. who had quit smoking in them out for a couple hours. They Jon’s Place was an old restau- hide in the back of his skull. The the last ten years. He pulled out all order coffee and sit in the rant/bar six blocks away. It was man lay down and pulled the another cigarette. “Ha, this is for booths for hours. They never tip. just off the freeway. The cus- sheets up to his chin. The nurse you boys,” he laughed aloud. There’s the old schizophrenic tomers consisted mostly of truck left the room for a few seconds woman who yells at the cus- drivers, stopping in for a quick and then came back with a rolled Joyce unlocked the front door tomers. Last week a guy pissed in coffee or a greasy diner meal. up, wet towel in her hand. She of the apartment. She walked a cup and dumped it out right in They sat in the booths, while the Seth Swaaley placed it on the man’s forehead, slowly down the short hallway by front of the restaurant.” old-timers sat at the bar killing off pulled up the blanket, and left the the bathroom and over to the bed. “I’m sorry. Maybe you can idle retirement hours. All of the room. The man’s hands shook vio- Her white, buttoned shirt was un- find something else,” Carl said. waitresses were old and had legs lently as he stared up at the ceil- tucked and her shoulder-length “I don’t know. I’m just real with purple veins and faces like ing. blond hair fell straggly over her tired. I don’t even want to think leather. They hobbled from booth Carl sat by the window of his ears. She threw herself down on about it. I just want to lie down for to booth taking the orders. The bar third story apartment across the the bed. a while.” was in the back. It was small and street. He curiously watched the “Hey baby,” Carl said, turning Joyce propped up the pillows, shaped like a grand piano. man wrestle with the blanket and around in the chair. sat upright on the bed, and reached Carl sat down at the far side of lit a cigarette. “Hey,” said Joyce, letting out for the television remote. She the bar. Irene, the bartender, If he could only hook up some an extended sigh. “Drinking flipped to all the channels for a walked over. She was a big type of pulley system that would already?” couple of minutes and then left it woman all around, in her late connect to the drug center. You “Yeah, you want a smoke?” on a late afternoon talk show. She fifties, with wrinkles so bad that it know: a couple of beers attached “What do you have? They stared mindlessly at the TV. Carl was hard to tell what color her to a metal cable contraption. Just a menthols?” watched her and tried to think of eyes were. Rumor was that before little something to get the boys “Marlboro Reds. Take one.” something to say. He sat there and working at Jon’s, she’d been a cor- through the fix-less nights. Joyce walked over, and Carl searched for the words, but could- rection officer at a Maryland Useless thought, though. Have a handed her a cigarette. She sat on n’t think of anything. woman’s prison. few drinks and you’ve got sympa- the windowsill with her knees “What?” said Joyce, annoyingly. “Hey, Carl, screwdriver?” said thy pouring out of the veins. folded up to her chest, and looked “Ah, nothing,” said Carl. Irene, in her raspy voice. He finished off the beer and out the window. She took the The sound of degenerate con- “Yeah, that’s good,” he said. grabbed another from the refriger- smoke deep into her lungs and versations and jeering crowds Irene poured a strong one and ator. A block away, the traffic at blew it out lazily. Her eyes had a echoed against the walls of the brought it over. Carl mixed the the intersection was steadily sad, faraway look. room. drink with a thin straw, moving it becoming more congested. Every “That bad?” Carl said. “God, isn’t there anything else around in a methodical circular ten minutes a city bus would stop “I’m sick of waitressing. I’m on?” Carl asked her. “I mean, lis- motion. He watched the orange at the light. Everyone got off the sick of the diner,” said Joyce. ten to these people.” juice blend in with the vodka and bus, tired, defeated. It was your “How were the tips?” “I know it’s stupid. You’re not put the straw in an ashtray. typical weekday. Carl shut his “Sixty bucks. It fuckin’ even watching.” He looked around the bar. eyes and breathed in the thick blows.” “Yeah, but I have to hear the There were a few familiar faces. smell of exhaust fumes. “Sixty bucks, that’s not too shit.” He felt the need to be around peo- He looked 28 bad.” “Fine, it’s off.” ple, yet at the same time, he didn’t want anything to do with them. ed up. her brother, some big shot busi- of weight! I’m lucky if I can get up Why the hell he spent so much of “Say, Carl, you hear about the ness guy... Anyway, turns out his to two twenty-five, and look at his time in bars, he couldn’t figure fireman down in Glen Burnie who wife’s father... or grandfather... me.” Jim stood up and threw down out. It was just another place to killed himself messing around Shit! I forget which one it was... his mug, some of the beer spilling hide. with fireworks in his basement?” No, no, now I remember, the on the bar. He stuck his chest out, Sitting on the other side of the “No, I didn’t.” grandfather. Well, get this, it turns rolled his shirtsleeves up, and bar was Jim. Carl looked away, “Crazy shit, man,” said Jim, out he designed the hood for the showed Carl his well-defined hoping he wouldn’t see him. throwing his beer down, foam ‘67 Mustang. Now, the guy owns muscles. “I’ve got some strength “Hey there, buddy!” yelled dangling from his red mustache. something like twenty factories, to me, but Jesus Christ! That kind Jim. His eyebrows raised and a big His eyes were big and brown and all around the country, designing of stuff is damn near amazing!” drunken smile spread across his looked like they were being cars. I mean we’re talking big Jim went off to the bathroom. pale face. Carl hesitantly nodded charged by a couple hundred volts bucks, like multi-millionaire, you Carl took that as his cue to sit back. Seconds later, Jim was sit- of electricity. “He’d been a fire- know.” somewhere else. He walked into ting in the next stool over with a man for over twenty years, then “Un-bee-lievable,” said Carl the side game room and put a cou- pitcher and mug full of beer. He one day his head gets blown off by sarcastically. He took a big sip and ple quarters in the pinball grabbed a firm hold of Carl’s fore- his son’s fireworks.” finished his drink. He wondered machine. Next to him, an older arm and said, “Hey, Carl, how ya’ “Pretty strange,” said Carl, how many more it was going to man sat in front of a video poker doing? Haven’t seen you around looking at everyone at the bar but take to get the job done. He waved game, smoking a cigar. much.” Jim. over Irene to get him another. The bar was now starting to “Hey, Jim.” “God, Carl, did I ever tell you “Say, I got that one Irene,” fill up with the after-work, early Jim was a talker. There are this story? No, I know I didn’t. It said Jim. night crowd. A Johnny Cash song people who enjoy conversation was someone else... Pete I think... “No, really, that’s all right,” played on the jukebox. Carl tapped Seth Swaaley and then there are people like Jim. the old guy with the cane... comes said Carl. his foot and sang along, throwing Anyone who’s been to enough in on Sunday afternoons. Anyway, “What are you talking about! in his own words “Love is a funny bars in their life knows this sad to get to the point, you know I’m buying you a drink, damn it! thing...” He was starting to feel breed. Every bar has at least one. where I work, yeah? I’ve told you You crazy?” pretty good. Everything around They’re usually heavy drinkers. before. Anyway, so this lady “All right, thanks Jim.” him seemed to have a warm It’s likely they’ve done the A.A. friend at work... cute gal... great Irene laughed under her brightness, a comfortable sense of stint more than once. Rarely are smile... oh boy, what an ass!… So breath, brought the drink over, and clarity. Takes you ten drinks to they out to cause trouble though. yeah, what was I talking about? smiled at Carl. She’d been work- feel all right; that can’t be good, he What they feed off of is the sound Yeah, so this lady friend at work... ing there long enough to see it all. thought. of their own voice. Every possible, great smile... Excuse me, Carl, “So, Carl, I was reading yes- He walked back to the bar and uninteresting, random fact known I’ve been drinking for a while. So terday’s paper. There’s this guy sat down. Sitting in the stool to his to man is what they pride them- this lady friend, she’s got this from Canton, eighty-two years left was a rail-thin, blond-haired selves on. brother up in Pennsylvania, he’s old, started lifting weights ten woman of about forty. She had a Jim was a good guy, just near- got two kids... daughter and a son. years ago to reduce the arthritis in small, narrow face and beady ly impossible to sit alongside of. I think the daughter goes to Penn his arms and hands. Now the guy mouse eyes. She was twitching Carl tried to get up from the bar, St... son works construction. But can bench two hundred and seven- like she had Tourettes and mum- but before he could, Jim had start- that’s neither here nor there. So ty-five pounds! I mean, that’s a lot bling something incoherent LUTAINB TOM WRENN ILLUSTRATION BY
29 “I wouldn’t make eye contact if I “I don’t, unemployed.” “You know, I could really use to the apartment. Joyce was lying was you,” said Joe, an old regular “Yeah, right, I bet you’re a place to stay. Last week I was in the same fetal position she’d who was sitting on the other side some kind of secret agent,” said here and I went home with this been in when he’d left. Carl stood of Carl. Kat, spinning around again. guy. I didn’t want to fuck him; I over her and watched her sleep. “Huh?” “Yeah! Yeah!” she screamed. just wanted a place to crash. But The room began to move violent- “That lady next to you looks “Sure,” said Carl, thinking, when I got back to his apartment, ly around him. He had the spins like she’s trying to get your atten- I’m going to have an aneurysm if we were on the couch… and My real bad. He motioned to grab her tion. She’s nuts.” arm. But for some reason, he just “Right,” said Carl. couldn’t do it. He felt like a pup-
Carl looked at the woman. He’s always shitting in his pants. He sits down at pet that had some psychotic pup- Seth Swaaley She smiled, did a 360-degree spin the table and every time I walk by the booth I smell peteer pulling the strings. in the stool and drank down a half Carl sat by the window, a pint of beer. She waved her it. Today he pulled out his money and there were smoked the last of his cigarettes, hands in the air, and yelled, brown stains on the bills. and then passed out face first on “Yeah, yeah!” the desk. When he woke up it was “Hey there,” said the woman. two in the morning. The right side “Hey.” this skitzo doesn’t sit still. God! He was as hard as a rock!” of his cheek was numb. He felt “What’s your name?” Irene looked at Kat and shook Kat put her hand into a fist and nauseous and thought about shov- “Carl.” her head. Jim was on the other brought it close to Carl’s face. ing his finger down his throat, but “I’m Kat. You from around side of the bar talking to some “Italian. Yeah, I couldn’t believe he was too damn tired. He took here?” newcomer about the recent tur- it. I’m just saying, you know if I off his clothes and lay down on “Yeah, couple blocks away.” moil of the stock market. A couple crash at your place I could, you the bed and tried to close his eyes. “God dammit! That fuckin’ of regulars were raising their know.” The room spun around him. He jukebox! Where’s the fuckin’ beers and singing along to a Merle “Sorry. Can’t help you.” tried to focus on the shadows on music! You want some of my Haggard song. “Well, Fuck You! Ass-hole!” the ceiling. Everything kept mov- beer?” “I don’t have anywhere to Kat downed the rest of her ing. He felt like he was on a “No, thanks, I got a drink.” sleep tonight,” said Kat. beer, jumped off the stool, did a merry-go-round going sixty miles “You from around here?” “That’s too bad,” said Carl. full pirouette, and then ran into an hour. He put his hand on “Yeah,” laughed Carl. “Those bastards at my the game room. Carl shook his Joyce’s hip and listened to her “What’s your name?” halfway house. They lock the head; thinking, how the hell do I breath. Down the street he could “Carl.” doors after ten. I swear I’m gonna always manage to attract the hear someone pushing a shopping “What do you do?” get a lawyer and sue those fuck- freaks. He downed the rest of his cart and screaming all hell. It “Do?” ers.” drink, left a twenty down on the seemed like everyone was looking “Yeah, for a living.” “Maybe you should find a bar, and stumbled home. for a way out. “Nothing.” halfway house that gives you a set –Seth Swaaley “No really, where do you of keys.” He fumbled with the keys for work?” “Yeah, whatever.” a minute and then opened the door Shiftless When Idle Maddy
Periodically he would lean over a little to scratch his butt. Ah, the New think that every Razorcake col- boldness, his other hand outside of such thing as spring. One day out more underwear. All of a sud- umn I’ve written in the past few his pants grabbing and striking his there’s snow everywhere, piled in den, a hanger came flying out, Imonths has included at least ten dick through the fabric! His move- big, dirty lumps. And the next day, breaking in two, and dropping to insults to New York. You’d think ments were so wild, he ended up it’s summer. Sort of.) But when my the ground a few feet away. Ah ha! I’d completely forgotten about the elbowing me several times. I mom and I got on the subway that Stolen goods! And still, she kept at world’s other, equally great, evils: looked around to see if anyone else day, we found one New Yorker who it! A silky nightie came out of her war, sugar-free candy, sexism, emo, on the train noticed. Nope! hadn’t left Christmas behind. At pants. More panties came out of the and the fact that its been at least six Everyone else was just going about Union Square, Santa Claus got on hidden, inner pockets of her coats. months since I’ve seen a This Bike their business, la dee da, reading the train! A very dirty Santa Claus. It was a mad flurry of silky under- is a Pipe Bomb show! the paper or talking about Pink. He had the whole ensemble – the wear, coming fast and furious out Seriously though (ha!), living I started thinking, when this long white hair, long curly white of the never-ending pockets and in a city as big as New York is sorta ends, its gonna end BIG, and I don’t beard (this particular Santa was hiding places in this woman’s like going to all girls Catholic know if I can survive it! Visions of actually wearing two beards!), red clothing! She tossed it all into her school. It’s a horrible idea, but myself covered in a stranger’s suit, and… REALLY dirty red shopping bag, and then, after five you’re guaranteed to see some pret- semen came to me! Would I end up sweatpants. And he was huge – at or six minutes of continual under- ty ridiculous stuff. (For a definition bearing his child due to a bizarre least 400 pounds. And filthy. He wear retrieval, she was coming up of “ridiculous,” see Dee Dee mixup/spillage? When my daughter made a grand entrance onto the empty. But still she searched one Ramone/King’s rap album.) So, in asked who her father was, would I subway, raising his arms as if to more time – her socks, her pockets, the interests of fairness and accura- have to say, “Your father was a man give a speech. Everyone got quite her hood, inside her bra, in her cy in reporting, I present to you: who masturbated so vigorously on in anticipation of what Santa would pants, everywhere. This woman Three Ridiculous New York City the subway, that he somehow man- say. He took a big, deep breath, and had to have no less than twenty Subway Sightings! aged to impregnate me.” And child- then shrugged and turned to face pockets. Amazing. 1. The other day I got on the raising lesbians think THEY have it the wall. Periodically he would lean All of this is proof of the fact subway and sat down between two tough? My daughter was going to over a little to scratch his butt. Ah, that the New York subway is essen- Maddy guys. It was the middle of the day, be scarred for life. She would spend the New York Santa. tially a no-man’s zone. Anything with lots of people on the train. The her days on the subway, desperate- 3. A few weeks ago, my and everything can happen there, guy to my left was mostly con- ly trying to find a man masturbat- boyfriend and I were on the sub- with no threat of police, puritans, or cealed under a giant puffy jacket ing! No! I could NOT stand for way. It was crowded, and we were peaceniks. People organizing what and really baggy jeans. I happened this! So, I slid a few inches away sitting about a foot away from a are clearly stolen goods. People to glance over, in a sorta downward from him. And then looked to my middle-aged woman, who was masturbating. People sharpening a direction, and I saw some sort of right. I was right next to a guy standing. Some teenage boys knife before their next fight. Santa movement. I looked closer, and it sharpening a foot-long knife. passed her, trying to sell candy Claus on a bender. Alright! Let’s looked like the guy was just adjust- 2. A few days before that, my bars, and she yelled “Get away hear it for the dirty, bizarre New ing himself. (Note: I am VERY mom was visiting for the weekend. from me!” And then, she reached York subway! glad that I’m not a guy – who wants It was the middle of January. into her big winter coat, and pulled –Maddy to deal with that?) So I looked Everyone in New York had thrown out a pair of silky underwear and P.S. I just finished a Tight away. And then I saw it again. out their tiny Christmas tree and threw it into her empty shopping Pants/Snakepit split zine! A differ- Movement. I looked over and this was entering the time period known bag. My first thought was, “This ent comic strip for each day of my guy was going at it – furiously! as MLFTOTY (Maddy’s Least woman must be homeless, and has life in the month of December! This wasn’t just regular old mastur- Favorite Time of the Year) – the no to carry all her stuff with her.” But Plus, Ben Snakepit’s usual great- bation. This guy was giving his man’s zone between the glory of then, it continued. She pulled two ness! To get a copy, send me a buck dick a serious beating! Up and Christmas (yes, I am a SERIOUS more pairs of underwear out of her or two. (Madeleine, 296A Nassau down, side to side! One hand in his Christmas dork!) and the joys of pocket. Then she shoved her hand Ave #3L, Brooklyn, NY 11222) pants, and, in an act of admirable summer (in Wisconsin, there is no down her coat sleeve, and pulled
TRIBUTES BY ERIC RIFE AND JESSICA DISOBEDIENCE
ALL PHOTOS BY ERIC RIFE
over the last 20+ years, I can honestly say that Strummer was, truly, a very special person. I only got to meet him twice, but the few minutes I spent with him reassured me that this was a man of uncommon sincerity. Indeed, he was one of the very few musicians who I’ve shot who had lots of nice things to say about my work. When the Clash exploded into my little suburban exis- tence, I was at a fucked up period in my life. It was 1979 and I was with my grandmother at a Fedmart, having just returned from the hospital where I had been visiting my dying mother. I dropped eighty-nine cents on a 45 single I’d heard on the radio. “Train in Vain” became my favorite song INTERRUPTING THE USUAL STATIC and I played it everyday until a couple months later when I flipped it over for the first time. BY ERIC RIFE Suddenly I realized that for all those weeks, I’d been lis- tening to the wrong side. The song, “London Calling,” was a If anyone needed further proof of the intellectual and editorial bank- stark contrast to the poppy, radio friendly track credited to ruptcy of Rolling Stone, there was ample evidence to be found in their Mick Jones. This song, with its dramatic intro, filled my ears January issue. The week that Joe Strummer died, the magazine chose to put with a tension I hadn’t heard, but was still intimately famil- N’SYNC’s Justin Timberlake on the cover, complete with a six page iar with. It was filled with revolutionary drama and the spread. singer sang as if he was yelping out his last words before the Strummer, on the other hand, got two pages, comprised of little more goon squad around the corner caught up to him. This was a than a short, rote history of the Clash, replete with the Associated Press-cir- song that sounded important, an adjective I’d overuse for the culated quotes which had already been used to death in every other newspa- next two decades to describe what would become my per in the country. Five banal questions posed to Strummer shortly before favorite band of all time. “London Calling” was Strummer’s his death were billed on the cover as his “last interview!” John Lennon to Jones’ Paul McCartney. The New York Times didn’t fare much better; the photo they ran with At the time, The Clash and Give ‘Em Enough Rope had his obit was not Strummer, but band mate Mick Jones. How the “newspa- yet to be released in the U.S. The only thing available on per of record” could make such a boneheaded mistake was hard to fathom. these shores, prior to the release of London Calling, was The Near the bottom of the heap was Tom Sinclair’s obit in Entertainment Cost of Living E.P. which I never even saw until I got a job Weekly which, like too many others, recalled Strummer’s early days before at a record store ten years later. With my mother’s death a deriding him (in the words of another music critic!) as “a man without a few months later, my demeanor and musical tastes changed context” whose post-Clash work was “anti-climatic almost by definition.” dramatically. Suddenly Cheap Trick and Blue Oyster Cult Anyone looking for more fitting tributes needed to turn to the zines and weren’t so damn relevant. Now, bands like Stiff Little punk websites untainted by the systematic constraints of mainstream corpo- Fingers, the Sex Pistols, Sham 69, and of course, the best of rate media. John Holmstrom, editor of Punk, perhaps put it best when he the lot, THE CLASH, dominated my turntable. wrote of Strummer, “…he was one of the good guys in punk rock. When There was something immediately likable about Joe someone is a good person on top of having talent, it’s a truly special thing.” Strummer, especially if your politics ran to the extreme left (In the spirit of full disclosure, Punk published several of my photos of as mine did. Clad in a Brigade Rosse t-shirt, performing at Strummer’s last US shows). anti-racist rallies, Strummer was a nice contrast to the reac- After shooting and interviewing hundreds of bands 34 tionary, right wing bullshit of people like Sammy Hagar, Ted Nugent, and Rush. He was just the sort of hero (a very UN- verge of imploding. A couple weeks before the tour was scheduled punk notion to be sure) that people like me desperately needed in to begin, Strummer was found wandering around Paris. To my great Reagan’s America. relief, the tour would go on. Of course, there were a lot of punks who hated the Clash, espe- They were again scheduled to appear at Golden Hall, with the cially in the early days of the California scene. Wearing a Clash English Beat opening the show. The Beat put on an amazing set, but shirt to a punk show risked incurring the wrath of those whose alle- when the Clash hit the stage, opening with “London Calling,” an giance to the L.A. bands bordered on the fascistic. Contrary to the electric charge went through the place. Strummer’s eyes were popular image of punk being an inclusive community for outcasts bugged out, and he sang as if testifying to the last days of humanity. and deviants, the California scene could be extremely exclusionary. There was conviction in those hands, furiously attacking his trade- Any show of support for bands outside of the U.S. (until the second mark Telecaster, as if milking it for all the soul it could produce. wave of British punk hit with groups like Discharge, G.B.H., and There was dedication in his words, mixed with the spit that was for- the Exploited) was looked upon as concrete evidence of being a ever inadvertently showering forth from his lips. poseur. California punks The crowd began bouncing were especially suspicious of up and down to the jackham- anything resembling politics. mer beat. I shouted along to The only “political” bands the song, even as I became who got a pass were the buried under a mass of people Dead Kennedys, the Dils, who were falling all over and Canada’s resident anar- themselves. I sweated, hyper- cho-syndicalists, D.O.A. ventilated, and became lost in Twenty some years after a temporary state of near hys- their first tour of the U.S., all teria. To my relief, the band I can do is wonder why I worked through their choicest didn’t see their first San material – “Brand New Diego show at Golden Hall. Cadillac,” “Somebody Got The image of the marquee Murdered,” “Police on My which read “Give ‘Em Back,” “Complete Control,” Enough Rope – The Clash,” “Clash City Rockers,” is forever burned in my “Tommy Gun,” “Safe brain. By most accounts, European Home,” “Death or their first shows in the States Glory,” “Koka Kola,” “The were exemplary with only Magnificent Seven,” and the California punks offering “Clampdown” among others – up contempt. Ironically, it before finishing up with was the mainstream press Bobby Fuller’s “I Fought The who hailed the Clash as the Law.” By the end of the night, saviors of rock and roll. I was a quivering mass of When the Clash returned energy, confident that I’d to the U.S. in 1982 for their been a witness to a moment in Combat Rock tour, their best musical history as meaningful days were undoubtedly as the burning of Hendrix’s behind them. Sandanista had guitar at the Isle of Wight. several brilliant moments Despite all the beer and pot I (albeit clouded by the band’s consumed, I had a hard time most experimental efforts) going to sleep that night. and their latter single, Over the next couple years I “Radio Clash,” was revolu- had the fortune of seeing the tionary in the way it blended Clash two more times, open- punk and rap, in the same ing for the Who at the L.A. way that “White Man in Coliseum (where their forty- Hammersmith Palais” had five minute set seemed woe- successfully mined reggae. fully short when compared Combat Rock, was of with the three hour marathon course, the band’s break- the Who cranked out) and at through into the American the 1983 US festival, their last mainstream. Suddenly all the American show before Mick assholes at my high school Jones was kicked out and the were mindlessly singing band entered the most critical- along to “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah,” ly dire chapter of their career. The US festival was a great show two songs which, in my mind, didn’t speak to the true creative marred only by my girlfriend, who chose to pick a fight with me potential of the Clash. It was pretty lightweight stuff, but I was right in the middle of (ironically enough) “English Civil War.” already used to their occasional misstep, if you want to call it that. I When the Clash returned to the U.S. for their 1985 tour, they didn’t like the second side of the album but played “Know Your were considered a paltry shadow of their former selves. Without Rights” until the grooves in the record went gray. looking at the credits of Cut the Crap, I couldn’t tell you the names Regardless, I bought tickets for the show the day they went on of the two guys who replaced Mick Jones. Still, Strummer was sale. Not too long after, Strummer went missing. Things had begun every bit the fiery iconoclast and carried the show for everyone to look very bad for the Clash with the band kicking out Topper except for maybe the most jaded fan. Jones had been kicked out for Headon shortly before Strummer went AWOL. Rumors of a cancel- ideological differences, which was fine with me because I always lation floated about and I had a hard time concentrating in class believed Strummer was the heavyweight of the band. If he said with the thought that my favorite band in the world were on the Jones had to go, that was all I needed to hear. The crit- 35 ics ravaged Cut the Crap but being fiercely loyal, I found gems in retrospect, it’s easy to see how Strummer’s appearance saved the between the chaff. It wasn’t London Calling by any measure, but as night, the tour and, briefly, the band itself. long as there were a few things to sing along to, I was satisfied. When they finally disbanded however, I was neither surprised Another nine years would pass before I saw Strummer on stage nor all that upset. I knew it was only a matter of time before the again, this time at the Sun Theater in Anaheim. A young woman weight of their convictions (which, arguably, occasionally sounded stood in front of my friend and I, jabbering on about being too pretentious) brought them down. My commitment to them had young to have seen the Clash. If Joe was playing for any one person begun to erode, but my faith in Strummer rarely waived. that night, I think it was this girl. When he came out, he picked up It wouldn’t be until six years later that I’d see the man in con- his Telecaster, still adorned with the “Ignore Alien Orders” sticker cert again, this time fronting the Pogues who had recently fired that had somehow survived more than twenty-five years and frontman Shane MacGowan. A BIG Pogues fan, I was reminded of launched into a set evenly split between new material and old. It those heady days in 1982 when a was a great show interrupted Clash tour seemed doomed by HE WAS JUST THE SORT OF HERO (A only once by a screaming drunk. internecine struggles and an M.I.A. VERY UN-PPUNK NOTION TO BE SURE) The guy was incoherent but Joe singer. MacGowan’s departure had THAT PEOPLE LIKE ME DESPERATELY stopped playing to see what the left Hell’s Ditch tour in question until guy wanted. Everyone else want- Strummer, a long time compatriot of NEEDED IN REAGAN’S AMERICA. ed him thrown out, but realizing the band, was asked to step in. the guy was being a major nuisance, he invited the guy to watch the I hadn’t been bowled over by Strummer’s Earthquake Weather rest of the show from the side of the stage. album but enjoyed his performances in Alex Cox’s dismal but A couple years later, Strummer was doing an in-store appear- entertaining film Straight to Hell and Jim Jarmusch’s superior ance at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard. There would be a free Mystery Train. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this pairing, concert and then a signing to follow. Despite high-tailing it up to but it seemed like a logical match up. Hollywood in the carpool lanes of Interstate 8, my friend Alan and I The show was at the Wiltern Theater in Hollywood and I had arrived a few minutes too late to be admitted into the show. But third row tickets. I took a girl who, like most of the women I knew another line had begun forming and in the interest of fairness, at the time, had little interest in either the Pogues or the Clash, would be among the first people admitted into the signing. despite my best efforts. I think she took pity on me, which was fine, When my turn came, I greeted the man without a lot of fanfare, because I needed a ride to the show. not wanting to create one of those awkward embarrassing moments. When the band came out, Strummer, clad in a Hawaiian shirt, He put out his hand and greeted me with a warm smile and signed a opened the set with “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” and I Clash concert bill and photo book I brought along. He was, like they was taken back to that night at Golden Hall in 1982. Again, there always say, shorter than I imagined. I muttered something about was that electricity coursing through my body, and a feeling of sat- Noam Chomsky to which he replied “Is he still around? I thought he isfaction that I had been right all along – forget James Brown, Joe was somewhat of a recluse.” I told him that no, the good professor Strummer was the hardest working man in show business. was still at MIT and was still America’s most important dissident. I Halfway into the set, the Pogues gave Joe his due, ripping thanked him as he put out his hand again and thanked him for his through Celtic folk interpretations of “London Calling,” “I Fought time. He did not disappoint me. the Law,” and “Straight to Hell.” As brilliant as the set was, I could- Two years later, Strummer was scheduled to play the n’t fully appreciate his contribution until I saw Shane MacGowan Troubadour in Hollywood. First it was one night, then two, then years later, desperately hanging on to the mike stand, clutching his finally, a five-night stint was booked as one show sold out after the umpteenth drink and slurring his way through his best material. In other. I’d never shot Strummer and the Troubadour, to their awe- some credit, have a very liberal policy towards photographers. I saw the first two shows and much more importantly, captured them on film. They were among the best shots I’d taken and proudly handed them out to any of my friends who wanted prints (copies are still available for a very modest fee to cover printing costs). The last time(s) I got to see the man live was at last year’s Hootenanny, which had expanded from its usual loca- tion in Irvine to include shows in San Diego and Mountain View (near San Jose). He was in top form at the first show, located on the perimeter of Bill Graham’s Shoreline Amphitheater. While groups like Hot Rod Lincoln and the Original Sinners played on opposite stages, Strummer could be found at the Epitaph booth signing stickers, tickets, and posters. Although his tour manager was doing his best to lead him away, Strummer would graciously stop every few seconds whenever an outstretched hand beckoned his name. No one who wanted a moment of his time or an auto- graph was turned away. Then, as always, Strummer was on the outside both physically and artistical- ly. While the rest of the show was dominated by rockabilly, punka- billy, shockabilly, and whatever else, Strummer’s punk/reggae/world beat sounded oddly out of place – except for everyone who was in the audience. Newer material like “Johnny Appleseed” and “Yadda Yadda” was trotted out which everyone patiently endured, waiting for classics like “London’s Burning,” “White Man in Hammersmith Palais,” and “I Fought The Law.” Not to say that the solo material wasn’t good – it was. But when the opening strains of “Police on My Back” cut through the muggy afternoon air, it was like a fuse had been lit. As the drums kicked in, the audience began bouncing up and down and I thought back to that show at Golden Hall twenty years earlier. I was thankful to be on the other side of the barricade, happily burning roll after roll of film. The show in Irvine was equally good. Unfortunately, Strummer, who had been listed as the headliner, had to play second fiddle to the Rev. Horton Heat. For those of us diehards, it was an act of abomination on the part of the organizers. No slight to the Rev, but c’mon. What would come to be his last U.S. show took place on July 7 in San Diego. Like the other Hootenannys, the concert would take place outside and again, the Rev. would headline. Strummer’s show was exceptional and even the new material sounded better than ever. I had printed out a few shots from the Troubadour shows and gave them to my girlfriend Alma for safekeeping in the event I could get them signed. After securing a backstage pass from a friend, she headed for the backstage area, intent on finding Joe while I shot Nashville Pussy, another Hootenanny standout. As I shot what was the umpteenth photo of guitarist Ruyter Suys, I felt a tug at my arm. “I found Joe!” my girlfriend screamed, showing me the signed photos. “He loves the pictures and wants to meet you!” We ran back to where Joe sat, quietly holding court with an array of fans and other musicians. He put out his hand, called me by name, and told me how much he liked my work. After having my work dismissed by editors, bands, club owners, and promoters, it was the ultimate reward. I kept my visit brief because it was readily apparent that he was not feeling well. He seemed very tired and in need of rest. We said our goodbyes and went out to watch the rest of the Rev’s show, which for me was anti-climatic. I heard the news of Joe’s passing from Alan, who, like a grim reaper of the Internet, is forever emailing me links to newspaper obits with headers proclaiming “Dee Dee Ramone R.I.P.” It’s not YOU’RE MY GUITAR HERO! really the way I care to hear about my heroes passing on, but I appreciate the thought anyway. I was shocked but also felt strangely BY JESSICA DISOBEDIENCE fortunate that I’d been able to meet Joe and document some of his last shows. But I also knew that a part of me died that day. I had met and been disappointed by too many of my heroes (a good rea- The famous punks who didn’t die tragically young, I expect son not to have heroes, I guess) and the one who turned out to be as them to live forever. And when they don’t, it shakes me up. It was good as I had always assumed was one of the first to go. I recalled hard enough losing Joey Ramone, a little less hard (for me, anyway) Malcolm McLaren’s remark about Elvis’ death – “Yeah, a tragedy losing Dee Dee – but it still shook me up, because half of the origi- isn’t it? Too bad it couldn’t have been Mick Jagger.” nal Ramones were suddenly missing from the world. Thw Clash were always more than just a band to me. They were It’s like this, and its a cliché. Imagine being fifteen. You’re an urgent bulletin on pirate radio station interrupting the usual static angry, sad, confused. You’re filled with a rage so all-encompassing passing for news and entertainment that pollutes the public air- that you think it will consume you like fire. You think that one day waves. They were a salvation of sorts, a dependable voice I could you will ignite and whoosh! that will be it. Burning up in a brilliant always count on when my other musical heroes jumped ship or mel- blaze of pure rage. You feel like no one could possibly put words to lowed out beyond redemption. They provided the soundtrack to my what you’re feeling. There are a few bands you listen to, but mostly political convictions and gave me a voice which I could broadcast you’ve given up on the old crap. You’ve sold most of your CDs so loudly as I wove my way through traffic. Strummer was more than you can have money for illegal cigarettes and illicit, drunken nights just a punk who seemed to forever rise from the ashes, returning to alone. confound his critics and give back to those who believed in him. He Then one day, bored, you flip on the radio. It’s all so much pop transcended the constraints of punk convention and chose people shit. It’s like a gooey film on your eardrums and you hate it and you over ideology. want to smash the radio. Suddenly, you happen to change to a sta- History, of course, will be the final judge of his contributions, tion that’s playing some sort of retro hour: seventies and eighties so I guess it doesn’t matter what a bunch of assholes like Rolling tunes. The last few minutes of an R.E.M. song finish, and then the Stone and Entertainment Weekly have to say. And when you think music blasts through and changes every fucking thing. “Darling about it, not even the words of the historians will matter all that you’ve got to let me know… should I stay or should I go?” You much when compared with those awesome, brutal, beautiful, revo- turn up the music so loud it rattles the windows, and lutionary chords that rang out like a Tommy Gun. you dance stocking-footed around your room, sud- 37 spike your hair so it’s a weapon and write slo- gans on your t-shirts, like: “Mummy, what’s a sex pistol?” or “combat rock.” You’ve also managed to fall in love with the lead singer of The Clash. It doesn’t matter that he’s old enough to be your dad. All that matters is his beautiful face, frozen in time from twenty years ago, staring down at you from your bed- room wall; and his voice, soothing you off to sleep sometimes and other times making you want to start a riot of your own. Then, four years later, you find out that this man is on tour with his new band, and he’s coming to your town. You’re elated. You feel like, after you see him up on that stage, washed out by the glare of multi-col- ored lights, playing those good old power chords, you could die happily. You wish you could meet him, and you wish you could tell him how fucking much he’s meant to you without sounding like a complete idiot. You secretly harbor fantasies that he will fall madly in love with you despite the age differ- ence, and ask you to join his band. Of course, you know that won’t happen. But that’s okay. You’ll still get to see him up on stage. Your hero, right there in front of you. On October 15th, 2001, the big day had arrived. I was about to see my real-life guitar hero in concert. Yes, I was going to see Joe Strummer, the love of my musical life. The man who was in my favorite band of all time. The man who, more than anyone else, I wanted to be with, or maybe just be. The man who had gotten me through tough times with good music to boot. I was going to fucking see Joe Strummer. I went to the show, dressed in a short skirt and cool shoes, hoping that he would somehow pick me out of the crowd and ask me to run away with him. I was shaking with anticipation. When he walked on stage, I thought I was going to melt into a puddle of giggles, like some dumb girl. Punks aren’t supposed to have idols, I know. But we do have them, and it would be idiotic to try to deny that. God, he rocked out. If I hadn’t known, I never would have guessed that he’s almost my dad’s age. He still looked so moth- erfucking sexy. He and the Mescaleros played some Mescaleros songs, of course, but they played a lot of Clash songs, and a Specials song, and even a Ramones song. “This is for a dear departed,” Joe said, and they blasted denly joyous and pissed off at the same time. You don’t even pay right into “Blitzkrieg Bop.” And how could I forget? They played attention to your mom when she tells you to turn the volume down. “Rudie Can’t Fail,” my favorite fucking Clash song. Thanks, Joe. After the song is over, the radio DJ comes on and says: “That No, Joe never asked me to run away with him, but it was okay, was The Clash with ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’” THE CLASH. because I got to see him finally, after waiting for over four years of What a fucking brilliant band name, you think. THE CLASH – you my life – and when you’re as young as I am, four years seems like picture fights and protests, bricks flying through windows and an eternity. It was the best show I have ever seen. rowdy celebrations, bonfires, and blood. And you understand, right So it’s a little over a year later. The Clash were just about to be at that moment, that The Clash is going to mean more to you than inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame (and about damn time, any other band ever. First you find the album that “Should I Stay or too – I still stand by calling The Clash “the only band that really Should I Go?” is on. You would have preferred to buy it on record, matters”) and there was even discussion of them getting back but you settle for a CD because that’s all you can find. (You’re together for one reunion show in honor of it. I woulda sold my sold overjoyed, years later, when your uncle gives you his old vinyl for a ticket to that show. And I’ve been trying to work on a Clash copy.) fanzine, filled with stories written by people about how they got You slowly start collecting all the Clash albums, bootlegs, and into the Clash, and what that band meant for them. I was planning imports – anything you can get your hands on that says “The Clash” on sending a copy to Joe Strummer when it was all done, thinking on it. You’ve started listening to other loud, searing bands; you that it would be a way of saying thanks for everything 39 he’d done for me and so many other people. “Know Your Rights.” And The Clash also did rad things like make On December 23rd, 2002, I was leaving Baltimore, where I had their album prices lower, even if it meant a profit loss for them. been visiting my friend Ali, who’s just as in love with Joe Strummer There aren’t too many bands that do that these days, on major or as I am, and The Clash is her favorite band, too. We had a hella rad indie labels. And Strummer didn’t do anything cool after The time, as usual, having all kinds of crazy adventures: drinking beer, Clash? Bullshit. His solo career and The Mescaleros produced a lot hanging out at punk rock shows, excited because we thought we of good fucking music. I’m sorry it wasn’t “punk rock” enough. might get to see The Clash! I flew home content, happy that I got to Blah. see her, excited about my life. I was listening to The Clash on my ...AND HIS VOICE, SOOTHING YOU bus ride home from the airport. I got into my apartment, glad to be home and to have a couple days to relax before Xmas, anxious to OFF TO SLEEP SOMETIMES AND kiss my boyfriend. There was a message on the answering machine, OTHER TIMES MAKING YOU WANT TO from Ali. She sounded devastated. START A RIOT OF YOUR OWN. “Hey, Jess, it’s me. I know you won’t be home yet. But give me a call as soon as you get back. I have some really bad news.” This same boy also told me that mourning the loss of someone I My first thought was that something bad happened to someone didn’t know personally was meaningless. Well, fuck you. Tell me we knew. I ransacked my backpack for her phone number and how you feel when your favorite member of your favorite band of called immediately. all time passes on. Tell me how you feel when the person whose “Ali?!” words got you through a lot of shitty times is no longer here. And “Yeah.” it’s more complicated than all that, too. I’m not just feeling the loss “What the fuck happened?” of a great musician and a good person, I’m feeling something deep- “Joe Strummer died last night.” er than that – something that I can’t even put into words. Something “What?! This is some sort of awful joke, right?” that I don’t want to put into words. “I wish.” The one positive thing that Joe’s death has caused for me – it That was before they knew he had a heart attack. We imagined sparked something. It makes me want to carry on his legacy, in a it had been some sort of unnatural cause. Murder? Drugs? Suicide? way. Not necessarily through music – but I have promised myself Joe Strummer wasn’t supposed to fucking die; it couldn’t have been that I will try as hard as I fucking can to make as much of a positive natural causes, right? impact in people’s lives and in the world as Joe Strummer did. I started laughing hysterically because that’s what I do when I So I will raise a pint to my lips tonight, and before I drink I will don’t know how to deal with something. It wasn’t until a few hours say: “Whatever world you’re in now, Joe, I hope it’s just as later, when a DJ at the college station I listen to played “London rockin’ as the one you left behind. So long, Joe. This one’s Calling.” for you.” “Well, I gotta go,” I told Ali after we talked for a while about how unbelievable this all was. “Try to have an okay Christmas,” she said. “Yeah, you too.” I hung up the phone, sat down in the middle of my living room floor, looked at the three Clash posters I have in my apartment, and tried to imagine life in a Joe Strummer-less world.
People gave me shit for being upset about Joey Ramone’s death, and I got even worse shit for being sad about Joe’s death. I was in no mood to deal with it. “Strummer’s dead, so what?” some dude I vaguely know online said. He went on this whole rant about how Strummer was a sellout and so were The Clash. Unlike his favorite bands, Crass and Rudimentary Peni, who are oh so pure. ‘Cause they weren’t on major labels, and their members have done cool, important things since those bands broke up. Yeah, so I ain’t sayin’ The Clash/Joe Strummer were perfect. No one is. And I’m not a huge fan of major labels myself, but I argued that because they were on a major label, The Clash were able to bring their politics to a wider audience. Sure, lots of people bought Combat Rock for “Rock the Casbah” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” but then they also had to hear “Straight to Hell” and It seemed to happen all of a sudden. Out of nowhere, Skip a couple years. I had a similar experience with the synthesizer made a roaring re-entrance into a form the Causey Way. Dressed in white and hypnotizing, they, of music that had formerly shunned it. If you would have too, brought big bundles of the rock and used the key- asked me ten years ago, “Hey, what do you think of key- boards, not as a frill, but as an integrated part of their boards?” I would have responded, “Shove it up your ass, sound. They helped melt some of my hate. Since then, twinkle toes unless you’re the Screamers.” Keyboards my hate’s been slowly reversed. I sincerely believe that were often rock’s nemesis. They cluttered the Top 40 air- keyboards, when used properly, can add a new, fuller waves. Goddamn it, man, Michael Boltons’ band uses one. dimension to bands – from the Locust to Snuff, Lost “Alternative” music didn’t provide the antidote. Too many Sounds, and the Epoxies. wispy, feather-haired Euro-dressing puds coifed in their I’d first met Scott Stanton – when he would only go grandmother’s clothes and poofy, lacey shirts pranced by Causey – two years ago. He was one of the very first around keyboards. I was leery, skeptical, and full of interviews to appear in Razorcake (#1). Since then, the venom. The enemy was easy to see. If a band member Causey Way dissipated and he’s started another project didn’t have an instrument with strings or they didn’t beat with his wife. It’s called Pilot Scott Tracy. There’s a little the hell out of it, they might as well be holding a wall- bit of overlap in the sound from the previous band they sized glossy of my mom getting gang raped on stage. I were both members of, but it’s definitely taking off in a took it a bit too seriously. My heckles and threats were unique direction, and it’s pretty addictive stuff. Theyre’ full constant. of sultry, hyperactive jumps of songs that blaze and Enter a little band called Servotron, who engineered slither along with guitars, pounding drums, and – yes, I’ll robots that were geared to kill all humans. Their set was fully admit a pretty fuckin’ cool-sounding keyboard. furious. They were bent on destruction, and they had a – keyboard. I was confused. What I was supposed to hate Buckle up, put on some goggles, and crack open a little was sorta soothing, sorta cool. My ear had been cracked. bottle of booze (or fancy juice). It’s time for. . . Pilot Scott Tracy
<> Interview by Todd <> Photos by Zteven <> Todd: Scott, did you take Tracy’s last name? Your name is now hyphenated. Scott: Yes, Tracy’s last name is added to my last name. My last name is added to hers. Seems like the natural thing people should do when they get married. Todd: For you, what is the most musical dif- ference between your previous band The Causey Way – which you and Tracy were in – and Pilot Scott Tracy? Scott: Um, that’s kind of tough to answer. You see, I wrote all – well 99.9 percent – of the songs for The Causey Way and Tracy filled in the gaps by writing the keyboard lines and structuring a majority of the songs with me. Tracy and I co-wrote and recorded the Pilot Scott Tracy songs. We’re the same creative writing team we were when we wrote the songs for the Causey Way, so I can’t say we have this big change with PST. Tracy and I have had a lot of practice on writing and recording songs. As far as our first Pilot Scott Tracy CD, Flight 0713, if anyone is familiar with and likes The Causey Way, I’m sure they’ll like Pilot Scott Tracy. As of now, we’re moving on and written many songs that sound different. I think our country roots are rubbing off into our songs, but no one would ever pick that up and say we’ve gone country. A Moog doesn’t really sound like a slide guitar. My voice might get as pitchy as Hank Senior and he might be an influence, but I’ll never sound like him. Hank is far too unique. Todd: How’s the band different, internally? 42 Scott: Pilot Scott Tracy is great fun because We took on that saying as our touring battle tle ridiculous with our keyboards. We some- we’re not a band in the tradition we’ve all cry. times talk to them like they’re little babies. come to know. It’s enjoyable because we Todd: So, why the ending of one band and We have issues, huh? don’t have to answer to any members within the beginning of a fresh new one? Not many Todd: In “Love Is an Animal” you talk a band, we don’t have to deal with labels, bands have pulled that off except All and about “piggies.” Although it’s tongue and booking agents, promotion companies, or Toys That Kill. cheek, there’s an anti-authoritarian senti- any of that. We’re in control of that now Scott: I suppose I entered Pilot Scott Tracy ment. Have you been hassled by The Man? and that makes life much less stressful. We with a much better mindset then I did with Scott: [sarcastically, half joking] Yeah, as a have the control to dismiss whatever we white male… The Man has really beaten me may wish. If we want to stay on the down. Life is hard for me. Like most of the couch and watch All in the Family, we suburban white punks, I created a feeling can do that. But we haven’t had to inside that I had been beaten down by call anything off because we set the cops and that life was unfair. The everything up and we think about Man wouldn’t let me skateboard at a our well-being when we set things certain place. He wouldn’t let me up. Therefore, we don’t have to can- play loud music. He wouldn’t respect cel stuff due to the fact that we’re about my crazy hair. I had serious problems to to crack from road life and stress. We deal with and I was pissed. I suppose, as don’t have to call a booking agent or kids we became aware that things are unfair club and say, “Man, our van is broken. We the Causey Way – I got caught up in the for so many people and we just tried to won’t be able to make it to the show.” Even hype with the Causey Way. In short, I had a rebel anyway we can. We saw a lot of if you are truly broke down, booking agents “living the dream mentality” and I jumped hypocrisy. So I guess, all in all, it’s good and promoters treat you like a middle the shark into another world. I became part that kids get angry about little things. It will school student and think you’re lying. of the hypocrisy that I was so against. I make them see things clearer when they Nobody needs that shit when you’re actual- faced that. I didn’t like where I was going grow up. Hopefully they’ll grow and look at ly broken down in the middle of nowhere. and I made a hard change. After the Causey real issues very critically. I suppose that’s Constant touring starts to feel like that in Way was done, and time had passed, Tracy the thing I see most unfair about our gov- general. No matter where you are, you feel and I realized we really liked the music we ernment – they have kept things hidden and like you’re broken down in the middle of wrote and recorded. The answer seemed they don’t tell the truths and the struggles of nowhere. Booking agents can make pretty clear: ditch all the baggage that comes along so many people. This is so elementary and a tough schedules. Mooney Suzuki used to with being in a “band” and just play some given for the majority of your readers, but mock their booking agent in a “friendly” music. Pilot Scott Tracy is a very small part far too many people don’t know their histo- way. They would say that the only thing of our life. It’s a way to make music, take ry. If one studies the history of the U.S with he’d ever say to them is, “Keep driving!” some small trips, and meet some new peo- a critical mind, it makes things clearer as to ple. why we still have so much injustice. Todd: When and how did you and Tracy America has some huge problems that are meet? specific to our country and our country Scott: Gosh, that goes back sometime. alone, but the USA has been successful at Tracy went to college in my hometown keeping such horrific facts from being of Pensacola, Florida to receive her talked about. Instead, all we hear about is Bachelor’s degree. I didn’t know her how much better our country is compared to then because I was always out of town, any other country. There’s a serious prob- skateboarding in contests. Tracy was lem when people push their beliefs and back into live music, so she knew people who it up with, “but that’s what our forefathers I knew through music. This fact would wanted.” Do they ever think that maybe our play out to be important down the road. I forefathers were a bunch of assholes? This was in a band called This Bike is a is obviously very complicated, but I believe Pipebomb and Tracy was friends with almost everyone has a big dream that that the bass player, Terry. So when we one day things could be simple and all peo- played in Gainesville, we stayed with ple will live in comfort. This will never hap- Tracy quite often. I remember one time pen as long as we live in a world of that Tracy and I stayed up late talking extremes. If we have extremely rich, we about music and pop culture and we will have extremely poor. If we have enjoyed each other’s company a great extreme liberals, we will have an extreme deal. This certain Gainesville show hap- right wing. If we have religious, we will pened to be the first show of a two- have anti-religious. When it comes down to month tour, so I had a great deal of time it, we’re all just trying to feed and clothe to think about Tracy. I wrote her and our babies, and capitalism and pop culture said I’d like to visit her after the tour. in the modern world has changed what that Tracy agreed with my wish and I ended means. I’m growing more and more cynical up visiting. I never left. of big business and the media, not the gov- Todd: Hate to be cheesy, but was it a ernment. “your synthesizer or mine?” type deal? Todd: I’m not a listener who’s usually big Scott: As far as keyboards, one of the on bleeps and bloops and synthesizers, but few things I brought with me was a Korg Pilot Scott Tracy’s music has an organic Monopoly and Tracy fell in love with feel to it. At times it feels very surfy. At that keyboard. To this day, Tracy other times, it has a great flow – like very believes that it’s her keyboard. I suppose well-structured songs, instead of purely it is. She gained ownership over that experiments. There seems to be a soul keyboard somehow. Tracy and I get a lit- behind your machines. Can 43 you take me through your thought Scott: Anyhow, you made a great point be a problem when you play music in a process of putting a song together in this about experimental music and I agree. I band. I have no idea what I’m doing. way? believe I’m more turned off by the exper- Todd: How did you come about to find Scott: I agree with you completely. I’m imental music than I’m with the most that the synthesizer was the instrument not much into “beeps and bloops” or popular pop song. for you, especially since it’s such an experimental stuff. Tracy and I use older Todd: Any other form of music get you antagonism to the populace at large? keyboards, nothing past Scott: Well, I haven’t the ‘80s. I’m not a fan of come to that conclu- all this new digital stuff sion. I like synthesiz- that happens to be a ers because they make song at the touch of a unique sounds. I also button. There’s no soul like that fact that they in that at all. We write are very much about our songs just like most science, rather than bands – a couple chords rock and roll. Guitars with two or three are rock and roll. changes within the song. People who go to the We have the standard Hard Rock Café love setup of bass, guitar, guitars. I have always and drums. Tracy just loved the noises that does the leads on the come out of old syn- Moog. I don’t see why thesizers. Tracy and I bands need so many gui- watched this “satan- tars. Guitars are such a ic” movie the other dude instrument and night that was shot in there are only so many the ‘60s and Mick things you can do with a Jagger does the guitar to create a differ- soundtrack which is ent sound. Guitars are simply Moog noises. I kind of stupid in my love to picture Mick book. Old keyboards, tweaking those knobs like Moogs, actually give on the Moog. It’s one the option to create quite funny. So, I a sound that’s totally guess the Moog was original. It might sound the soundtrack for far out there, but it’s Satan. your own sound. Todd: When did you Keyboards are more common now. scratching your head? cross over away from purely guitar? Things have changed. Not long back I’d Scott: Emo gets on my nerves. They Scott: When I was in This Bike Is A never see a self-proclaimed punk band aren’t the ground-breaking genius they Pipebomb, I’d use pedals through my with keys in it and now it’s pretty com- may think they are. It’s all been done guitar to create synth sounds. I’d catch mon to see keys in the lineup. I’ve been before. I hear those songs on college shit for not keeping it real. I guess using made fun of by punks when I played key- radio that play on and on and I think one pedals or effects was not keeping it real. I boards in a band. These “punks” would or two things: these guys are way too was breaking the rules in a world that resort to the insult I became so familiar serious and pretentious or they think was supposed to be rule free. Still, all in with in my skateboard days. Rednecks they’re making some bad ass art. I guess all, Tracy and I actually sit around and would yell, “Hey faggot, get a car!” while those things go hand in hand. play guitar more often then we play key- I skated down the street. Punks went Todd: Or they’re super worried the trust boards. We mostly play old country songs with, “Hey faggot, get a guitar!” I still fund’s running out or their pants are too on our porch. But when we record and don’t know why a skateboard or a key- tight.. play live we don’t think that’d go over board created so much anger in these Scott: Whether it’s completely experi- too well. It’s kind of boring when it folks. For some reason, the heckler mental, emo, math, or powder punk, it all comes to a show. Admittedly, Causey always resorted to a gay remark. I know gets lame when it’s not original in the Way and Pilot Scott Tracy recordings are keyboards have a bad name, and for least. It sounds like many of these folk filled with keyboards and new wave good reason. We live in a world of prefab buy the CliffsNotes to emo, or the sounds and one would think we’re all songs filled with Madonnas and boy CliffsNotes to punk when they write their about keyboards. But neither band was bands. Keyboards turn me off because songs. It gets comical for sure. all about keyboards. Instead of turning the way most people use them, but gui- Todd: What gets me about emo is they up the “shredding guitar lead” in our tars turn me off as well. Damn, musicians cite great bands – Rites of Spring, mix, we choose to turn the Moog lead up. turn me off. Walk into one of those Seaweed, Drive Like Jehu – and then The keyboards stick out in our music a Guitar Centers and tell me those people they mostly come out with out-of-focus, great deal because other bands don’t are not the worse. whiny, tinkling, nutless crysongs. commonly use synthesizers the way we Todd: I know you hate people saying it, Scott: What artistic nerve hits them and use them. I’m not saying that we’re doing but you do look a little like David Koresh. they think, man, I need to make this won- something completely new and original. Scott: Did you know that David Koresh derful song public? Anyhow, as far as We aren’t at all, but we do use our key- met his drummer in a Guitar Center in our writing pattern, I suppose I hear boards in a different way. We have the Hollywood? Koresh was recruiting peo- things a little differently than most of the same keyboards that Rush, Van Halen, ple in a Guitar Center. people I have ever played music with. and Phish have, but we just use them Todd: I bet that’s not on a plaque there, This could be simply from the fact that I quite differently… next to a dude from White Lion’s hand can’t tune my guitar by ear and I don’t Todd: Or Rik Wakeman’s prog rock 44 print. hear very well at all. You know, that can supernatural fairy tales. Scott: Thank God. You Had Wings” ride at Disney and that the year I move, they build a skatepark. Todd: Amen to that. So why not take the ride is probably long gone since flying isn’t Todd: You were a professional skateboard- guitars out completely, for PST? very sexy anymore. er for Zorlac, right? Scott: The guitar has a sense of “coolness” Todd: Did your parents read you a lot of Scott: Yeah, I was a pro skateboarder. This to it. Like I said before, many popular rock fairy tales when you were children? question brings up so many memories and bands have keyboards in their lineup, but Scott: Not that I remember. My dad was so many present ideas I have about skate- they put the keyboard player way in the more the type to read the dictionary to me. I boarding. Skateboarding has reached the back, or behind a curtain so no one would suppose that’s why I vacated into fairyland popularity that I only dreamed of long ago. see them. as much as I could and I remained there as But now that I see this reality come true, it’s Todd: No shit. Paul Stanley of KISS, when a bit of a nightmare. he was doing the song, “The Fight” as part Todd: How so? of a band called Desmond Child and Scott: Skateboarding in the general eye Rogue, employed Rik Wakeman to do of the public has been reduced to a synth. You can barely hear it. Sorry, I video game. It’s now an extreme just hate Rik Wakeman. idea that sells Ford trucks. Fender Scott: I suppose they think keyboards guitars has an extreme guitar are gay and it’s cooler to be up front endorsed by a skateboarder. That’s shredding the fret board and having a fan insane; not just the idea itself, but who blow their hair. Pilot Scott Tracy isn’t they have to endorse as well as how lame afraid to look gay. As a matter of fact, the guitar is. we’re quite fond of it. If we must be catego- an adult. I was from a big family so there Todd: In your estimation, what skater rized in the synthesizer/new wave camp, I wasn’t much time for reading to each and deserves a signature guitar? guess I’m okay with that label. Devo, every one of us. I was much more a fan of Scott: I would have voted for Lance Tubeway Army, the B-52’s and Blondie are cartoons. I suppose Tracy was reading fairy Mountain, Ray Barbee, or Stevie Cab, but big influences, but The Clash, The Specials, tales since both of her parents were public the guy they chose is a member of Tony The Damned, and a million other bands school teachers. Tracy’s much more about Hawk’s traveling circus. That fits into the before them are of great importance to us. the visual and cartoons as well. That seems business of it all, I suppose. American punk rock, too. pretty clear in the music we write and the Todd: So, Zorlac? Todd: Well, that’s what I like about the bands we’ve formed. They’re always visual. Scott: I was sponsored by Zorlac years bands you’re in. Your music’s always full Todd: You’ve touched on skating a couple before I turned pro. I was pro just about the and thick. A lot of new wave rehash is real- times already. Do you have a hankering to time George Bush senior was in the White ly thin – they only seem to pick up on one hit a half pipe? House. That kind of dates what time period or two dimensions of it. What aspect of Scott: I’d love to skate a half pipe! It seems we’re talking about. It was kind of a weird your personality gets perfectly fil- time all around. I remember tered into your music? flying around the world Scott: Well, I suppose it’s clear. doing skateboard demos dur- We don’t take ourselves too seri- ing the Gulf War. That was ously when we write our music. interesting and scary. Zorlac Life is already far too serious, and originated in Texas and had a to bring that seriousness into some- whole different vibe than thing that’s supposed to bring joy, most skateboard companies well, that can be depressing. I sup- of that time period, and that pose we all know far too many was my original attraction to artists who take things way too seri- them. ously. They let people who critique Todd: With one of your them or review them in a negative Zorlac boards, you had a manner shoot them down. I suppose Pushead-drawn balding they have self-importance issues. clown skull as a graphic, We’re like most songwriters and I right? suppose what’s on our minds comes Scott: Yeah. Zorlac started out in our songs. We write about with Japanimation and those what we like and don’t like. We ideas so long ago, years based some songs off of a theme before any other skateboard park experience. Tracy and I had company got into that art the idea for the Causey Way after form. They had very original we went to Disney’s Epcot Center. ideas. The owner, Jeff Those rides gave us so many ideas Newton, had some financial for songs and theme bands, so when troubles and sold the compa- we got home and wrote songs, ny to some guys in those became Causey Way songs. California. This seemed to be “The Making of Me,” that was a a good deal at first because ride that showed in a G rated way Jeff would be free of whatev- how babies are made. “Carousel of er debt he had built up. It Progress” became a Causey Way turned out to be bad in the song as well. Tracy and I originally wanted like everywhere I live never has a vert long run. The original creative idea that Jeff to call the Causey Way, Republic of ramp. But the minute I move, they build envisioned turned to crap because Phobos. We saw that name on a TV screen one. I live in Kalamazoo, Michigan now. California Zorlac ran it into the ground. The while waiting in line for the Space The last place I lived just built a huge vert business guys in California lacked the cre- Mountain ride. Anyhow, then and now, ramp. There was no ramp in Gainesville, ative idea of what Zorlac was and should Pilot Scott Tracy has many roots to the “If Florida for the five years I lived there and be. They took their California 45 attitude and tried to continue this “Texas Scott: We were suckers for sure, young that you got out of skateboarding because image.” They should have started a new kids just happy to skateboard for bread and it was “getting too extreme.” Explain that idea completely. water. I know those guys were laughing because you’ve said you’ve noticed how The business guys at Zorlac their way to the bank and paying us the the realms of music and skating converge California – their skateboards sucked and minimum amount they could get away sometimes. the graphics got worse and worse. They cut with. I was this passive kid who they took Scott: Exactly. I got out of the business cost by any means necessary and this usu- side of skateboarding, but I never quit ally sacrificed the quality of the skate- skating. The business side and the crap I boards or the quality of advertisements. saw on that level robbed my joy of it. I They never listened to the skaters on the had to exit that world in order to enjoy team. They thought they had some clever skateboarding again. I was able to regain ideas. I never had what I wanted with ads, my love for skateboarding when I quit graphics or boards and, as a result, I did- being a pro/commercial skateboarder. n’t ride Zorlac boards. I’d ride other Idealization and realization can be the boards made by other companies, take the worst thing about anything. One dreams graphics off, and just say it was a proto- about something and envisions what it type. I was able to trade my Zorlac boards might be like for so long and when they at local skate shops because the boards finally “live the dream,” they see that it sold well at the time. isn’t what they thought. One has to do Todd: Jesus. That’s not a good way to be things for the right reasons – let their gut on a team. feelings direct them, and I doubt one Scott: These guys at Zorlac California will ever be let down. were all about making money and not too Skateboarding and music are worried about being a professional skate- similar worlds on the business side. I board company that real skateboarders never expected the “punk rock/art would respect. They were far more about world” of skateboarding or music to be just selling skateboards by any means. hypocritical, so when I found out that it One time, I saw my boards in a skate shop was just like any subculture of pop cul- with my autograph on it. I knew that I had ture, I was let down. I expect bullshit at not signed it, so I called Zorlac and they my dishwashing job or at my labor job. said, “Yeah, we signed it. It helps sales.” I I’m prepared for it because they don’t told them, “I guess I have no power over preach anything different. But when you that and you all are going to do it regard- enter an artistic culture where people less. Go ahead and sign my name, but DO preach to be different and not absorbed NOT, and I repeat DO NOT ever sign my by money, we see hypocrisy. I’ve seen name and draw a peace symbol next to “business folk” get absorbed with it.” I guess they thought that was a hip money, and “artist folk” get absorbed symbol and they attached my name to it. with fame. They both can wreck you They probably put an anarchy symbol and privatize you if you don’t watch out. next to my name as well. In many ways, they’re one in the same. Todd: Why’d you keep on skating for By the way, I believe skateboarding is them, then, and let them keep using your very much an art form, not a sport. name? Todd: Okay, final question. Now that you Scott: I guess I didn’t really give it all are no longer in the Causey Way much thought to change companies. I and in a “cult,” can you tell us a bit didn’t really care. I never thought of more about Tracy’s academic career? skateboarding as a big career move or Did she finish her Ph.D.? anything. That wasn’t a big reality for Scott: I suppose Dr. Tracy can explain me. I was all about skating and having a this best. She did receive her Ph.D. and I good time. We only dreamed of Taco know it was a brutal task for her. Bell and companies like that being our advantage of. I never complained about [Tracy walks into the club.] sponsors and being interested in skate- money or anything like that. I rolled with Tracy: Yes, I finished my Ph.D. in Film boarding. The good thing about Zorlac the flow and wore a smile. A few of my Studies at the University of Florida in California was the fact that they sent us so fellow, older team riders who knew better 2000. I applied for academic jobs all over many places. This was a time when not gave the Zorlac owners some shit. Craig the country and made the mistake of joking many companies were sending their team Johnson, Alan Losi and some of the others that “I even applied for a job in riders across the U.S. and they sent us all wanted to kill the heads at Zorlac. I never Kalamazoo!” My fate was sealed. I got the around the world. I was very happy in that knew why they were so angry. Now I job at Kalamazoo College – teaching film department and I was all about traveling know and I wonder why they dealt with it. studies and critical theory. Turns out, it’s and meeting new people and skating new I guess there was no other place to go. actually a great place. My co-workers are spots. I felt so lucky that Zorlac was pay- Most skateboard companies sucked then. kooky, creative, and interesting people, and ing for us to go around the world and There weren’t a lot of skater-owned com- they’re very supportive of our rock’n’roll skateboard. It didn’t hit me ‘til later that panies then and if there were, the skater moonlighting. Some of my students were we made those guys a lot of money by owners usually got wrapped up in the busi- Causey Way fans, so they’re new PST going around and being their little walking ness side and lost their original “vision” of recruits. About once a week, a student advertisements. Zorlac knew that sending what they wanted to start. Anyhow, as you approaches me and asks, “Is it true that us around the world to skate would gener- can see, I could ramble on and on about the you’re a rock star?” “Absolutely,” I ate big profit overseas, and they were right. silly world of skateboarding. All in all, it tell them. “This teaching gig is just a Todd: How old were you around this was a good time and quite an experience. cover.” time? Todd: I don’t mind at all. You also said 47 Interview by Sean Carswell Photos by Jeff Costello It’s hard to listen to a song by The GC 5 and not become a fan. Their songs creep into you like a virus infecting everywhere from the top of your mind to the bottom of your throat. You’ll try to sing along the first time you hear the song. For the next week, you’ll sit in front of the speakers, reading along with the lyrics and memorizing every note, every chord, every drum- beat. You’ll wander around town humming, “I know who’s gonna get fucked in the end,” to yourself. You’ll get into drunken conversations where you’ll end up slurring, “Have you heard of The GC 5? Why haven’t you heard of The GC 5?” You’ll dub cassettes and burn CDs of The GC 5’s albums and EPs for your friends, who will then go out and buy the albums and EPs because they want to own their own copy. I’m telling you this before you read this interview. I want you to know what you’re getting in to. So who is this band about to burrow into your brain? First off, The GC 5 have nothing to do with The MC 5. I only bring up The MC 5 because, well, you gotta admit the names are similar. Everything else is different. The GC 5 play a solid, fast, tough rock’n’roll that mixes in the best of Cock Sparrer, The Business, the Swingin’ Utters, and the Workin’ Stiffs, but manage to make songs that sound uniquely like The GC 5. They blend together intelli- gent lyrics about working class politics, heartbreak, growing up on the road, and coming from industrial northern Ohio with music and a sense of humor that makes you want to sing along. They’re also one of those bands that I want everyone to listen to. So, when they drove past LA without playing LA on their last tour, I talked them into stopping for a couple of hours and doing an interview. Pete, the singer, had “some beer drinking to do” and headed northeast to Vegas, but Dave, Doug, and Paul hung out with me for an afternoon, and we talked about street punk, politics, Wal-Mart, and betting the devil your head.
The GC 5 are: I wasn’t raised working class or really even route. But as far as being sent out to do fac- Pete Kyrou – vocals, guitar with working class values in the family, but tory work, that’s definitely not the case. Dave McKean – drums my dad’s a professor, so there’s a sort of Sean: Odd jobs? Doug McKean – vocals, bass working class intellectualism to my Dave: As much as any other kid. Nothing Paul Weaver – lead guitar upbringing. Obviously, a lot of the left out of the ordinary. pushes things towards an intellectual, work- Doug: We definitely had parents who didn’t Sean: Where do you get the strong working ing class mentality. So I’ve come around to want us to be lazy. class values from? Do your parents have it from the opposite direction. I didn’t really Sean: So you guys were only eighteen or working class jobs, or is it the area where live it, then talk about it. nineteen when you did your first album you grew up? Sean: What does your father teach? (Kisses from Hanoi)? Doug: We’re all fairly middle class kids. Paul: He teaches English. Doug: We recorded that in fall of ’99, so That’s around us; you can’t escape it. I Sean: Commie. English teachers are com- Pete and Dave would have been eighteen, I think it has something to do with how you mies. would have been twenty, and our old guitar try to get a grasp on the way you view the Paul [laughs]: No, he’s a die-hard centrist. player was a couple years older than me. He world when you’re in your late teens and And darn proud of it, too. would have been twenty-two or so at the early twenties. You define yourself within Sean: Dave, I read somewhere that you time. that. You take on certain values politically. were working since you were eight. Is that Sean: His name was Chris, right? What You become aware of how you look at peo- true? happened to him? ple. Things change in all sorts of ways. I Dave: Can I ask where you read that? Doug: He was working a lab at school. He think any lyrics that we’ve written about Sean: In an interview with Vic Gedris in graduated from college the year before we that come not in an attempt to propagandize World Wide Punk. recorded that record. So he was working the or make up slogans. They’re just a reflec- Paul: Doug did that interview. lab, and he got a chance to go work in the tion of what our values are. Sean: Doug’s the one who said it. lab out at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and Paul: For myself, personally, Dave [shaking his head]: I had a paper do stuff out there. I sound like I don’t know 48 what I’m talking about when I explain it, kicked ass and I’m a hack. If you want to stuff, but bands like Cock Sparrer, Sham 69, but I just don’t know that much about biolo- call a guitar playing style “lyrical” or some- Stiff Little Fingers, and The Clash. Good gy. thing like that, that’s Chris. And then, I’m anthemic British punk rock. I never thought Paul: He was working on a human genome just bashing away at it. that liking that stuff meant that we had to project out of Johns Hopkins. Doug: Paul’s taken a lot of the better adopt this, this, and this, and we had to be Doug: He was doing big shit and writing aspects of what Chris did, too. I remember whatever. If it’s very packaged, I think peo- stuff that’s actually going to be published. when we went into the studio to record the ple are right to have a bit of backlash He’s out in Chicago now. He moved out EP Horseshoes and Handgrenades, we did- against that. I think it’s packaged even more there just this fall and he’s starting grad n’t have the guitar solo written for one song so than ska or something like that. There’s school out there. He’s working on a PhD. before we went in. And Paul came up with quite a dress code to street punk. Actually, he’d been working in labs for the last three years. He’s got some experience under his belt. He’d been down to South It seemed like the most bizarre thing in the world America a few times. Sean: How’d you hook up with the band, to do, to go play Wal-Mart on Labor Day. Paul? Paul: I’ve been their friend for a long time. this really nice, note-y solo that ended up on Paul: Well, with ska, I think it’s harder to I’ve known them since we were playing in the record and made the song, in my mind. make yourself want to keep wearing a fancy different bands in the same small town Paul’s been good. suit every day. But it’s easier with street scene starting in our sophomore year of Sean: I don’t know if you guys have ever punk. It’s just wearing tighter pants and high school. And, I became obsessively thought about this, but I’m guessing you buying a set of boots. Especially if, say, you friends with these guys. I’d spend every have. When ska first came out, people were were into metal or something. You’d weekend over in their town. So I was just in pretty accepting of ska for a while, and it already have the tight pants. I say this like it the right place at the right time. I was the really got overexposed before it got a back- wasn’t me [laughs]. And you could already closest friend to these guys who could take lash. When pop punk came out, people were have combat boots for some other reason over for Chris. But I couldn’t even play gui- pretty accepting of it for a while. It really and wear those with three other fashions. tar at the time. was overexposed before it got a backlash. It’s easier to work your way into street Chris quit in a sort of hurried fashion, But when street punk and oi started coming punk. The one thing Doug left out was how right before the summer tour they had out, being the next big thing, people jumped reassuring it is to get into street punk the planned. He’d gotten a pretty good offer to on it right away. It had a backlash right first time and about how it feels so good, go out to Baltimore. He had told me in away. People were right away like, “You how everyone sticks together, and you’re advance that he wasn’t sure he could stay guys aren’t working class, you’re this and never wrong. But seriously, it’s such a car- with the band. It got my gears turning, like, that.” Why do you think that is? Do you toon. If you don’t have the hindsight on that maybe I could learn to play guitar and join have any theories as to why street punk got really fast, I’d question your ideas. I don’t GC 5. That would totally fucking rule. I a backlash so quickly? want to sound too harsh on bands who take played bass in my old band. I hadn’t really Dave: Probably because people were so it really seriously, but, to a certain extent, I played guitar at all. These guys were kind of fucking smart. do want to be that harsh. It’s can be a pretty hesitant about it. But I was like, hmm, let Doug: It’s such a package that you’re big trap. me try to learn guitar. So we had a lot of expected to adopt, like your lyrics, your Sean: Your musical influences are pretty shitty shows while I went through my grow- look, your outlook on things. I love a lot of apparent. But, reading old interviews, I saw ing pains. But it worked out okay. that music, maybe not so much the modern that you had some literary influences, too. Doug: I think our enthusiasm probably got us through that first tour. Sean: But your sound is dif- ferent than Chris’s. You don’t have as many solos. In that first album, he’s got a solo on every song. Doug: We have solos on almost every song on the newest record (Never Bet the Devil Your Head). To me, I think the new record is more of a guitar record than the first one. Paul: Anything I’d learned about guitar, I learned from Doug and Chris, and mostly just by playing the songs that they wrote the guitar parts for. Rather than talk about my style, I’d rather talk about his. He was all into violin and things like that, and he had this amazing vibrato and touch on the strings. I don’t know anybody who’s played like that. If you want to com- pare and contrast, I’d say he wish I could have been there to see him arguing with another person besides me. Sean: What do you guys argue about? What’s the latest one? Paul: What was the latest one? What’s the latest thing? Actually, we were talking about Billy Zoom today (Zoom is the gui- tarist for X, and he also runs a music repair shop in Southern California). Whether or not he’s a character, or whether or not he’s a straight-up prick, or whether or not he falls somewhere in the middle by being a charismatic prick. Sean: What’s your point of view? Paul: Charismatic. I’ll take the good with the bad, whether or not he’s an amazing guitar player. I’m kind of fascinated with people who are just crotchety and things like that. It cracks me up. Doug: Dave thought he’s just an asshole. Dave: Paul had emailed him back and forth for two weeks and had an appointment set up for this repair job. The first thing, we got there. He opens the door, “What do you guys want?” I don’t expect him to know who we are in the sense of, “You’re the guys from Ohio who emailed me,” but right off the bat, I was like, What the hell is up this guy’s ass? Sean: God is up his ass, Dave. He’s a born- again Christian. Paul: Goddamn! Goddamn it! Doug: I kept looking for that vibe, because I kind of knew about that. There were a couple of things around the shop that maybe suggested it a bit. Dave: His black shoes and turtleneck. Doug: From watching Decline of Civilization and seeing his scenes in there, he’s always curt with his answers and he just seems like a strange dude. I guess I was just kind of expecting that anyhow, and there was some of that. [to Dave] Looking at it, did you notice any of that weird, empty look that people who are born again have? Dave: I didn’t really notice it. Doug: It still seemed like there was this huge wall up. He didn’t have the normal born-again personality. I was on the lookout for it, though. Dave: So he asked us, “Can I get this done Like Kerouac? about what was fiction and what was non- tomorrow?” And if you email someone Doug: I hesitate to really overstate that. fiction became an argument about whether back and forth, he knows we’re on tour, he But, I read On the Road when I was in high or not drugs influenced your life, to what knows we need this by today. He agreed to school and still living with my parents. And degree does that ruin or add to art. Like, it beforehand. So we dropped it off and we when you have that very sheltered life of would the beatniks have happened if they went and ate lunch, did some stuff. When being in high school, and you read things weren’t the beatniks, or something like that? we came back, he’s like, “Yeah, I was sup- like that book, it really influences you. I don’t know. I’m getting off the subject. posed to be somewhere by ten, but appar- I don’t know that there’s a literary influ- I always stay to pretty cut and dry ently I’m going to be late.” And I’m like, I ence to anything we do. I guess any reason- things. I like reading about music more. don’t fucking feel bad for you. You had an ably intelligent person is to some extent And then I started reading philosophy, but appointment with Paul. This is your fucking influenced by art. Whatever we do as a band obviously you can get into debates whether business. You don’t agree to do something is influenced by books we read or music we that’s kind of fiction, anyhow. But now if you can’t do it. Be straight up about that listen to or whatever. mainly I read mostly political history stuff. shit. Totally rubbed me the wrong way. Sean: What about you, Paul? With your Doug: Dave, what do you think about phi- Like he’s doing us a huge favor because father being an English professor, did you losophy being fiction or non-fiction? One- he’s looking at Paul’s amp. It’s like we’re read a lot of books? word answer. nobody and he’s fucking Billy Zoom. I was Paul: It was always non-fiction. I got into a Dave: One-word answer: no. [Laughs.] Me totally getting that vibe from him. I fucking humongous fight with a friend the other day and Paul will always get into these little dis- hate that. I don’t care who the fuck you are, about what was and wasn’t fiction. It was cussions, arguments, whatever you want to be a nice dude. 50 incredible. The question call them, about anything and everything. I Sean: That’s true. On a totally unrelated note, you seem like nice, normal guys. review. Was that a joke? Doug: The local Wal-Mart was having a What made you decide to cover a Dwarves Sean: It was probably just some reviewer Labor Day celebration in Mansfield, where song (The GC 5 cover “Saturday Night”)? who didn’t read the lyric sheet and wasn’t we grew up. And someone from Wal-Mart Dave: The guy who ran Transparent able to piece together the lyrics. Or proba- called and asked us to play. It seemed like Records was all about the Dwarves. That’s bly someone just wasn’t listening too close- the most bizarre thing in the world to do, to his favorite band. We were doing stuff with ly. But I don’t know. I don’t remember that. go play Wal-Mart on Labor Day. The fact that label at the time, and none of us are Paul: Just making sure. that they use third world labor and child really huge Dwarves fans. Sean: You guys wrote a song for Eugene V. labor, just the fact that the Waltons are the Doug: I had to ask my friend who’s a Debs, too, right? richest family in America, and cashiers Dwarves fan, “What would be a good Doug: I went to college and studied history. make $5.15 an hour there. Obviously, Dwarves song for us to cover? What would I was really into how history is presented. there’s a degree of things being wrong, but I sound kind of like us?” I just couldn’t pic- And Debs was actually being discussed in think both of those things are pretty wrong. ture any of the songs working for us. So we class one day, in school, and people were Sean: Were they going to pay you to play? sat around in his room one time and listened just kind of ho-hum about it. They just Do you remember? to Dwarves songs until we found one that couldn’t seem to get worked up one way or Dave: I don’t remember. could work, one that was kind of like a rock the other about the fact that the guy made a Doug: I would assume so. I would assume and roll type song. So it was just that the speech against World War I and went to jail that if we were thinking about saying yes to guy from the record label was going to do a over it. it, we would probably gouge Wal-Mart for Dwarves comp, and he asked us if we Sean: Well, he was a presidential candidate some money. would do a song for it. at the time, too, right? Sean: Who bet the devil their head? Dave: It was like, all right, sure, why not, Doug: Yeah, he got almost a million votes Doug: Speaking of literary influences. I was we’ll have fun recording that song. from jail. It’s like what I was talking about looking through a book of short stories by Doug: It was fun. It’s a cool song. with the labor movement in this country. Edgar Allen Poe, and I thought it was a cool Sean: I always thought that would be a There are so many amazing stories in the title. The story kind of struck me, too. great song to do a Vegas-style lounge ver- history of this country, and if they’re pre- Sean: What’s the story about? sion of. You could sing that like you’re sented at all, they’re presented in a way Doug: The story is about someone who’s Frank Sinatra, the way it’s all set up. that’s just so boring and you can’t get into. very vain and is a little too cocksure of him- Doug: Have you heard Blag’s bluegrass You’re talking about this amazing stuff, and self. He’s always saying he would bet the album? It’s called Earl Lee Grace. There’s people can’t work up an opinion over it. devil his head that he could do this. One day a bluegrass version of “Saturday Night.” I Even if their opinion is “Great, he’s a com- he and his friend are crossing a bridge. think it’s the first song on that. It’s cool. mie bastard, he went to jail, he shouldn’t be There’s an illustration in the book, too. It’s Sean: What inspired you to write a song talking shit about the United States,” at least one of those old-style bridges with a turn- about the Molly Maguires? there’s something you’re engaging in. stile at the end of it; it’s a really weird Doug: It just kind of reminded me of how Paul: You push him into a fucking foot- drawing. But he says he would bet the devil history books are written. Just the fact that I note, and that’s what you’re going to get: a his head that he could jump this turnstile, was a history student in college and had to footnote response out of people. and this old man comes up and picks him up read about it in some other weird book Sean: In one of your early seven-inches, on his bet. He goes to jump the turnstile, rather than having learned about it in US there’s a story about refusing to play in a hits his head on one of the rafters and History class in high school. The entire Wal-Mart. What was the story behind that? knocks it off. Old man collects his head and labor movement, the entire structure of what Dave: That was completely bizarre. takes off. His friend takes his body and your day is, the reason you only work forty hours a week, the reason you earn a living wage in this country is because a lot of bad shit went on, a lot of struggles. It’s really an interesting story, and it’s never told. It really struck me as an unjust thing, that I didn’t know anything about that and I was in a position that I should know about it. Sean: I wrote a huge article on the Molly Maguires for Flipside a few years back. Doug: I saw that! That was you who wrote that? Sean: Yeah, that was me. Paul: Speaking of Flipside and Molly Maguires, was it a joke when they reviewed that seven-inch, and they said that there was some band from Cleveland, blah blah blah, and they’re like, “And they have a love song to some girl named Molly Maguire”? And that was it. That was the totality of the feeds it to cats or something. we got to talking and they decided to put the been doing a good job Sean: How does it relate to the album, EP out. for us, doing the things a record label is though? Dave: It’s Leprock you’re referring to? He supposed to do. We’re glad we’re not tack- Doug: It’s the same thing as Pink Floyd’s used to be Walzwerk Records. He originally ling that. Dark Side of the Moon with The Wizard of started Walzwerk putting releases out that Sean: Tackling self-released records? Oz. If you read along with the story at sixty he was one hundred percent behind, and Doug: Yeah. words per minute and listen to the album, then he started doing distro on top of that. It Sean: It’s a lot of work. You guys are also they go completely together. just got too out of hand for him. So he doing stuff with Mark from the Hudson Paul: I can’t believe you just referenced dropped Walzwerk, and then he wanted to Falcons? He’s putting out stuff for you? Pink Floyd. [Laughter ensues.] start it back up again, start it off small again Doug: Yeah. We started the label just doing Doug: To answer the question in a serious and do bands that he was one hundred per- a couple things. We put out a record by our way, it’s not literally meant to go together. cent behind. He scaled back the distro quite friend’s band, Tankaray. They had all these There’s some long-ass dragged discussion a bit. But when he decided to start it back songs, and no one would put out their to be had about it... up, he asked our friend who we were just record. They were touring a lot, so it would Paul: Let the record show that it doesn’t telling you about, “What American bands make sense for them to have a record out to follow as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the are there right now that are up and coming? tour behind. They’re a great band and Moon... Who’s out there?” He didn’t really go out of they’re great people, too. We put out a split Sean: Wouldn’t you like someone to try it, his way to find us; it just happened that our with GC 5 and the Hudson Falcons, just to though? friend happened to be friends with him and get more music out, I guess. Doug: Imagine the pissed-off emails we sent him a tape of our stuff. Sean: What happened with your summer would get about that. [Returning to answer- Sean: Weren’t you originally going to self- tour with Tiltwheel? ing the question seriously] like anything, release Never Bet the Devil Your Head? Doug: We were going to tour the West listen to the record, read the words to the Doug: Yeah, we did actually go so far as to Coast for twelve days or something with record, take from it what you will. Read the press them. We ended up talking to Thick Tiltwheel. We were supposed to meet them story; take from that what you will. Take and reaching an agreement on doing the in Las Vegas, go up to Seattle, and then any relationship that there is between the record with them, like three days before the back down to San Francisco with them. two of them, and make of that what you CDs came. We went through all the negoti- Without making it sound like there were will. ations to see how we were going to release any hard feelings or anything weird over it, Sean: How’d you guys get hooked up with stuff, etcetera, etcetera, not very interesting it’s just that we were talking to Davey a record label from Ireland? (The GC 5’s stuff, but it turned out that we released it Tiltwheel about the planning of it, and he’s Horseshoes and Handgrenades EP was with Thick. It actually never really came out like, “I know people in all these places, I’ll released by Leprock Records in Ireland.) on our own; they pretty much released it. book us for this stuff.” They went on tour, Doug: Our friend actually did a bunch of The time frame for it was kind of weird. and he had a difficult time booking a tour mail order with them and knew the guys Sean: They basically took the ones that you from the road. They were having all kinds pretty well – at least as well as you can pressed and released them with their sticker of financial problems and van problems and know someone from another continent. He on it? organizational problems, so a bunch of said they were good dudes, and that they ran Doug: Yeah. We sent a lot of them out as shows ended up not getting put together, a pretty good label over there. He sent them promos. We took a bunch of them to sell on and it ended up not being a tape of us and they said they liked us. So tour. It worked out pretty well. They’ve 53 worth their while to go from San Diego to with this girl at the end of the night, they Real catchy, ‘77- type punk. Ben sent a do it. But we were out here on the West hang out backstage, and... They hooked up. bunch of totally joking questions to them, Coast, so we were stranded for a while. So he gets a little action in the girls’ bath- like, “What’s one thing in life that you Sean: For how long? room, so we decided that mustaches were would try to pass on in your band?” Doug: Three shows in twelve days, or the way to go for the tour. Expecting answers like, “Never stick your something like that. Paul: It also has to do with how amazing the dick in a blender.” Or something like that. Sean: What did you guys do during that bass player of Hüsker Dü looks with his He ended up getting a five minute discus- time? mustache. It needs to be brought back. sion on how heroin can completely fuck up Doug: Hung out. Made friends. Stayed at Doug: So everyone on the tour is growing your life, and how serious it is. And, if their house, ate their food. Planted the GC 5 mustaches for the duration of the tour. there’s anything he can communicate flag. We’re thinking, in another month we’ll all through his music, it’s, please, don’t fuck Paul: We met and hung out with Pirx the be looking really good. around with drugs. Pilot. I guess we didn’t meet them, but Paul: We’re going to take pictures in some Sean: Ben is funny. Last issue, he wrote a established a relationship that went beyond nice sweaters. Make Christmas cards. whole article on why we should make more “You play my town, I play your town.” We Doug’s got some nice sweatshirts for the Amish jokes, and how, as a society, we stayed with those guys for a while. occasion. One’s got a big, giant bell on it don’t make fun of the Amish enough. We also met two dudes in Eureka, that says “Jingle this.” We’ll put the pictures Doug: Ben definitely kicks ass. California. They let us do a mosh pit at on postcards and send them off. Sean: Tell me about the article you wrote about two in the morning between four peo- Sean: How’d you get hooked up with the for them. ple and a kitchen. Rock N Roll Purgatory guys? You’ve writ- Doug: I wracked my brain for a while, look- Doug: If you can’t appreciate absurd things ten stuff for them, right? ing for something to work up a significant on tour sometimes, there’s no way you can Doug: Yeah, I have written some stuff for amount of ire about. Or some other emotion continue to do it. them. Ben and Lisa (the editors of Rock N that would inspire me to write an article. I Sean: Speaking about absurd things on tour, Roll Purgatory) are people we’ve known don’t usually write. Around that time, you guys want to tell me about the mustach- from shows. They interviewed us for their though, I struck me how the history of rock es again? zine really early on. I think they were GC 5 is being rewritten by VH-1. Like, when they Doug: Especially if you’re going to run a fans. They’re people from Ohio. They’re do their countdown shows and present picture of them, I think it’s best that we from right around where we live. They’re who’s important over the last fifty years of explain them in the interview. So Charles big supporters of a lot of good music. rock music, a lot of the people who VH-1 (from Tankaray) and Tankaray show up in They’re big Hudson Falcons backers, too. say are important are people who VH-1 Ohio, and Charles has got this goatee. He It’s a cool zine, too. Ben’s got a strange ignored when they were around. They’ll list says he’s going to shave the whole thing off, sense of humor. He has a gift for some very Fugazi in the greatest hard rock bands of all but first we convince him to shave so he has weird similes and metaphors. time, or the Replacements in the greatest just the mustache, just to look completely He did the most serious interview with videos of all time. The irony is almost too awesome for a day or two. So the first or the Riffs that they’ve probably ever done. much to even comprehend. second day that he has this mustache, we’re They’re a Portland band that sounds kind of playing Charleston, Illinois. He hooks up like Johnny Thunders and the Sex Pistols. It’s hard to tell the world to lick your ass and make it fusion out of contradiction, counterpointing Paloma’s sound sweet, but the Sharp Ease (guitarist Sara siren – the air-raid kind and the Greek kind – vocals Musser, bassist Dana Barenfeld, drummer Christene with super – sweet background harmonies and woozy Kings and the inimitable Paloma Parfrey providing wall-of-fuzz choruses. This is the sound Phil Spector vocals and ambiance) pull it off as a mat- wanted when he was waving that pis- ter of routine. They’re pop like tol at the Ramones: LA’s terminal Iggy, punk like the Pixies, per- excitement lit by TV – snow light and formance art put to power wrapped in early morning freeway chords and gone soggy from a fog, songs that are snapshots, not just few jugs of cheap wine; they fireball charisma so loud singalongs. You’re in love with the AM radio, the and hot it’s like walking into a jet engine and they world’s a mess in your kiss, and – says Paloma – any- always leave just enough of a mess behind after they thing worth waiting for will never ever come. Their sin- play (you know: Paloma spitting, Paloma barfing, gle on Soft Spot Records is where you start; passed Paloma splitting her pants, Paloma smashing an out on a couch somewhere in the South Bay is where answering machine, Paloma smashing a cardboard you’ll finish up. And all you’ll remember in between is cake with an acoustic guitar – whatever, the girl’s a that it was dark, the Sharp Ease were playing, and you hurricane). The Sharp Ease make nuclear were loving it. 56 Chris Z: So what happened when you pussy, played the House of Blues show with the B Harold, you better lick my ass!” – 52s? Was Colin Powell really there with Chris Z: How about your other songs? Do a bunch of Republicans? you have anything else that started goofy Paloma: I heard that they came afterwards and then took on some kind of deep mean- – that we were sort of the “after party.” I like to do – that I think we all do – is that ing? as much as the political is personal, I like Sara: They were young Republicans who Dana: “Bumpin’ Pussies.” wanted to rock’n’roll! to make the personal political. There’s a Christene: “Going Modern.” few songs that start off as political but Paloma: It was kind of cool, because they Paloma: Sara and Dana wrote “Bumpin’ were Republicans against the war, which is somehow, I find in writing that it always Pussies.” ends up about people. why I didn’t say anything. I would have Dana: Fucking around. said something if I didn’t know they were Sara: So anyone can relate. Paloma: It’s kind of making fun of “les- Paloma: Yeah. “Advantage” started off against the war, but I didn’t want to piss bian” bands. anyone off who was against the war. I’m totally political – like, “Who’s got the Sara: It’s very Indigo Girls. advantage?” – but ended up being a little totally freaked out about the war. Chris Z: So no Lilith Fair this year? Chris Z: What would you have said, for personal. Like: “How do I relate to this in Sara: Absolutely not. I would burn it. I my everyday life? What do my friends here the record, if they were regular warmon- would drop a bomb on the gering Republicans? think about the advantages of Sara: “This is dedicated to you being a woman or a man?” And guys. It’s called ‘Lick My it’s not even all about women or Ass!’” men, you know – it’s about people in Paloma: I don’t know, I probably general. Kids. Old people! would have asked my dad Chris Z: Do you get any of your (Paloma’s dad is the director of politics from your dad? the LA chapter of Physicians For Paloma: Yeah, he freaks me out Social Responsibility) who was and makes me think the world is actually there, for the perfect thing gonna end. I think my uncle freaks to say – he’s hyper – political. Or I me out more than my dad. probably would have said some- Chris Z: Is that the writer, Adam? thing like, “Give me your money – don’t Paloma: Yeah, he’s very apocalyptic. But Lilith Fair. It shouldn’t ever happen again. yeah, I grew up in a commune. I grew up give it to the military! Give the money to Chris Z: How would you reconstruct it? rock’n’roll!” Who knows? Or maybe protesting at least twice a week. Sara: Remove everybody involved with it. Christene: There’s a little picture of baby something regarding health care. And put in great bands. Chris Z: Nothing personal for Colin? Paloma at her mom’s house, holding a sign Dana: And maybe change the name. that says, “BREAD NOT BOMBS,” and Paloma: Making fun of the “Colin” part? Paloma: The important thing is, if it’s Sara: It’s such a weird, subversive subject, her little head is just barely peeking over it. going to be about women, then the funds It’s really quite great. that he came to our show. need to be going to women who probably Chris Z: So “Lick My Ass” – is that like Chris Z: Do you think people in LA get need it more than these fucking rock stars. what the band is about? the Spice Girls? “If you wanna lick my Like Ladyfest here – Christene worked on pussy, you better lick my ass,” like, “If you Christene: LA is a little sleepy. that and that all went to the East LA Sara: It’s definitely a sleeping town – but wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my Women’s Shelter. The organizers didn’t friends?” we get asked to play a lot. And the LA take a fucking penny. And that’s beautiful. bands are really great and really support- Sara: There’s a lot of inspiration from that. And not all Ladyfests do that, either. Paloma: It’s a little bit more about respect. ive. It’s a great community. Sara: I mean, Sarah McLaughlin had her Paloma: I think one of our best shows was Chris Z: Yeah, you said earlier that it’s the own booth of her own jewelry that she new “R – E – S – P – E – C – T.” just a Halloween party with the sold. There’s a big difference between that Centimeters. Everyone there was an artist Paloma: I was kind of joking, because I and a noble cause. think “Respect” is an amazing feminist and everyone went completely insane. Chris Z: That’s something I notice a lot of People went ballistic. People were hopping song, if you think about it. LA bands do – they’re not political and Sara: We wrote “Lick My Ass” for joke off of chairs, like romping on wheelchairs crusty and singing about something they and running into each other. purposes, but it’s taken on an anthem – like just ripped off from a Crass album… thing. The House of Blues crowd loved it. Dana: And Sara was a sunflower. Paloma: But I love Crass, though. Christene: She was all rocking out with a We had middle-aged moms coming up to Chris Z: Yeah, but you don’t have to wear us, like, “Oh, can I have a copy of ‘Lick big sunflower on her head. You couldn’t your politics on your sleeve to actually help but go nuts. And Dana was Mrs. My Ass’? Oh no. You know what? Give care. So maybe people don’t know the me three!” Roper. Sharp Ease politics – what’s your political Dana: Just because we knew everyone was Paloma: We sold out of everything. It was side? fucking weird. They bought everything. going to be “dark.” Sara: We’re definitely anarchists. We’re Chris Z: So you’re the ray of sunshine and Sara: “Lick My Ass” could revolutionize not completely active, but we do believe in the whole world. everyone else is zombies? non-commercial... Sara: Totally. Chris Z: Like all those soccer moms are Paloma: ...especially in our art. going to go home and be like, “Listen, Christene: And we’re all feminists. honey!” Paloma: A major thing Sara: “If you’re gonna lick my Chris Z: It’s interesting you say LA has read the book, I was like, “Oh, I’m nothing Christene: He was just a wanna-be beat- such strong community support, because like him.” But there’s still having that feel- nik. LA has... ing of, “Oh yeah, my friend lived in Darby Paloma: And he was kissing everyone’s Sara: A bad rap! Crash’s house.” ass later, like, “Ooh, you’re so good!” And Chris Z: Yeah, once you get out in the Chris Z: Darby’s ghost? What the fuck? he didn’t even see us! world. But if you live here, you know it’s Paloma: I don’t know. They also did a lot Dana: He was like, “The cops breaking are the best kept secret going. of drugs there, too. up our party – it’s okay! They can’t touch Sara: We’ve got the best bands! And Sara: Well, the Pixies are from LA! us at the beach! We can take our hands and there’s so many! I mean, there’s a lot of Paloma: [pause] No, they’re not. But clap them and get acoustic instruments and shit, too, but so much great music! Frank Black lives on, like, Mulholland. play at the beach!” And we’re like, “What Paloma: Even on tour, we’d talk about Sara: I heard he wears clogs! the fuck is this guy talking about?” other bands we play with, and people Chris Z: Did you have to stand up for Paloma: And then I gave the band a heart would be like, “Oh my god, I love that LA’s honor on tour at all? attack because I disappeared for an hour. band.” And to us, they’re just, like, our Christene: We didn’t have to prove our- Chris Z: Is that the best tour story? friends. selves, but you could tell the feeling right Sara: Paloma and I almost got in a fistfight Sara: LA can be a really scary ugly big before we’d play, at a rest stop.... I saw the ghost of a plastic place. But when you’re an artist, deer, and I got asked to go to an orgy! I you have to stick to people that ground was like, “Ewwwwwwww!” you, that make you inspired and cre- Paloma: There was a guy in ative. And I think that’s why the communi- Portland who smelled like B.O. ty is really strong. It’s a family kind of Christene: Worst body odor thing. ever – we walked in and we Chris Z: I like LA having a bad rap. No were gagging! one is paying attention, so everyone Sara: And it was just one guy! can do what they want. But you know, the whole town of Christene: It’s not like the next big Portland smells weird. thing will come out of LA, so all Paloma: And he was a drummer, too, so the labels don’t come here. the more he started playing, the worse it Paloma: And it seems like bands here have like, “Oh, they’re from LA.” got, and the more I wanted to watch, but I the most fun. There’s so many founders in Sara: In San Francisco, I was like, “We’re couldn’t! The smell kept getting worse but New York – everyone feels like someone’s from LA – don’t hold it against us!” And the music was getting better, and I was little brother or little sister. Here, you’ve people were like, “Noooooooooooo!” like, “I gotta gooooooo!” got much more friendly and warm arche- Christene: The crowds when we played Sara: And Paloma farts a lot! types, like fucking Exene or Mike Watt. were very receptive. Christene: We had a rule that when any- You don’t even say hi to them sometimes Paloma: Pretty much every room was one needed to fart, they had to open the car because they’re everywhere. It’s not like, filled, however small. window and stick their ass out. And so we “Oh, I wanna be Lou Reed! I wanna be Sara: I think we represented. And I told a would pull our pants down and wave our Sonic Youth!” People go to New York to guy in Santa Cruz to fuck off! asses at cars. fuck stars. Chris Z: What? Chris Z: Wow, so did you get like lonely Christene: Well, people come to LA to Sara: This is the set-up. This band was truck drivers following you for like 400 fuck stars. supposed to play after us and the cops miles? Sara: But movie stars! Not rock stars! came and broke it up and they couldn’t Sara: I wish! Chris Z: So how does all the LA music play. So I was sitting in the bushes where Chris Z: Didn’t Jim from the Smell drive history fit into your band? no one could see me... on tour? Christene: There’s influences – you can Christene: Drinking her medicine. Paloma: Yeah, he’s awesome! He used to hear it in the music. Chris Z: What’s your medicine? be a UPS driver, so I think he was stoked Sara: I like the Pixies a lot. Dana: Vodka. Bottles and bottles, like to be driving a van again. Dana: [long pause] But they’re not from water. Christene: We had a huge vision of him – LA. Sara: So I’m sitting there and I hear these he’d put on the Dirty 3, this dark macabre Sara: Oh, they’re not? girls ask this guy, “Why didn’t you get to music, and we’d be driving through these Paloma: But they do sing a lot about LA play?” And he’s like, “I dunno, this fuck- dark, macabre redwood forests, and Jim and they love LA and they talk a lot about ing lame-ass band from LA played and would look all stoic with his hair perfectly it! sprayed shaving cream all over every- coifed, and we’d picture him in a black vel- Sara: Who’s from LA? body.” And I immediately got up and was vet cape in a big black castle, and just be Christene: The Go-Go’s. like, “FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FAG- like, “Aieeeee!” Paloma: I’m a huge X fan, and my friend GOTS! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT Paloma: Can we talk about some of the from high school lived in the same house THE HELL YOU’RE TALKING games we played in the van? as Darby Crash lived in in Venice, and he ABOUT!” And he got really scared, and Chris Z: Like what? used to see his ghost or whatever. There then I went to go get the girls, like, “LET’S Sara: First of all, we have a game called, was this one side of the house on Paloma GO REPRESENT LA!” And they’re like, “For $500, Would You?” For instance, Street – which I’m named after, kind of – “Sara, chill out!” give us an example! and so it was like this trippy thing. We Christene: She comes in like, “You guys! Dana: Usually, it’s something shocking. always wanted to be punk rock and steal We gotta go represent! Come on!” Like Like, Paloma... Paloma’s a good example that sign, but we were always too lazy to rounding up the soldiers. because she’ll usually do it. do it. Sara: And then the guy was gonna, like, Paloma: I’ll do it all, as long as it’s video- Sara: People always compare Paloma to cry. taped! Darby Crash. It’s weird. Chris Z: You made a guy cry? Dana: “So, like, Paloma, for $500 would Paloma: Oh yeah, I’ve heard that a few Sara: Pretty much. And he was like, “I was you poop in your shoe and walk around all times. But after I just mad because I didn’t get to play.” day wearing your poop shoe?” And the funniest part is everyone else is like, “Aw, 58 Christene: Totally! If mama had too much medicine and passed out in the tall grass... Sara: ...then mama puts her to sleep! But you know, I think I’ve settled down a lot. I just go home to the cats every night. Paloma: Actually, in Santa Cruz, I had an emotional moment after being missing for an hour, and I came back and Sara was really freaked out. And I was all cry- ing drunk. The minute I got home, I was just sobbing, and there was so much love. I was just in my slip – I had lost my under- wear and my shoes and everything – and Dana is like, “Here, here’s a no, maybe for $1,000!” And Paloma will Paloma: We did this two blocks from shirt,” and Christene starts rubbing my say, “Well, where can I wear the shoe?” where I lived, so I went home and took a back, and I’m, like, crying in her tit. Chris Z: So it’s a game of technicalities? shower while I was puking, so I was just Sara: I cried, too! I was like, “I’m feeling Dana: “Can I wear it in the record store? puking in the shower, and then I show back ve-r-r-r-r-y emotional!” Okay!” up and everyone is like, “Are you OK?” Christene: And I’m like, “My whole band Sara: No, it has to be like, “Paloma, for And I’m like, “Yeah, let’s rock!” is breaking down!” And Paloma was so $500 would you do the smelly BO guy Chris Z: Paloma, what’s the story about distressed. I was going to cry, too, but then from Portland?” And she’ll be like, you chasing people around with a stick? I composed myself. And Sara ended up “Aaaaaaah, that’s just SEX!” Paloma: How’d you hear about that? falling into these really tall grasses – she Paloma: As long as it’s RESPONSIBLE Sara: It was my old band’s drummer’s stepped out of the van, took one step, and sex! house, and it was a Cinco de Mayo party, fell right down. And Paloma was so sad – Chris Z: Where do you draw the line? and Paloma was shitfaced drunk, and she we just held her! Sara: Anything with animals. had a blindfold on, and a bat. Sara: We’re an emotional band! Paloma: And condoms and family mem- Dana: She basically almost whacked Chris Z: This is the most heartwarming bers. It has to be protected and it has to not everyone. They’d be like, “Whoa! The moment I’ve ever had in an interview. be family members. And the really crazy piñata’s over here!” And she’s like, “I got Christene: I really thought I was going to ones have to be videotaped. it!” start crying. And then suddenly Sara is Chris Z: For like Sharp Ease Gone Wild Paloma: I felt really bad about it. crawling out of the grass, singing “The Vol. 1? Sara: And there’s a song about it! Sound of Music,” and she goes, “You Paloma: No, it’s performance art. I do per- Paloma: “You’re young and stupid and know, I don’t know if I can deal with this formance art sometimes. Just like... weird drunk...” rock’n’roll go-with-the-flow bullshit! I’m shit. I puke up cake. Sara: No, no, it’s so lighthearted! It’s a much too conservative for this!” And she’s Chris Z: On command? funny song! “Don’t give Paloma the bat, weaving her head, just finished calling Paloma: No, you put ipecac in the cake. I she’s gonna kill my girlfriend!” guys faggots and playing her ass off, and usually gag on part of it sometimes. Chris Z: So now that we talked about puk- she goes, “You know what? I QUIT!” And Patrick Miller (Sharp Ease visual techni- ing and hitting people with bats, tell me then she passes out! cian): Paloma gorged an American flag about the softer side of the Sharp Ease. Sara: I don’t remember any of this! cake to Black Sabbath and then puked it up Christene: We really do take care of each to the Dead Kennedys. other – if one person is having a hard time,
Article by Bradley Williams Photos by Sye Williams looked in the mirror. My hair was long, my t-shirt dirty, and I I made haste down to the closest barber shop on Hollywood thought, son you look like hell. Immediately it occurred to me Boulevard. Inside, I saw the day-glow Marilyn Monroe and Charlie IIthat I can’t go to the Velvet Hammer in this condition. I’m Chaplin painting and found the same Armenian man who had cut going to talk to professional adult dancers, and, I thought, I should my hair the year earlier. I asked for the basic haircut. I was out of at least appear somewhat dapper. So I searched my closet for my there in twenty minutes, clad in my brown suit and black patent best and only suit. It was the one I’d worn to a wedding, the same leather steel-toed shoes. I was feeling like a crisp hundred dollar one I lost my whole paycheck in Vegas while wearing, the one that, bill, and I should. I was on my way to the Velvet Hammer. Good when I passed out at the strip club, a dancer tried to remove from Lord, I love L.A. me to get laughs, and dollars, from my friends. I looked at myself I caught a ride with Sye, who was going to shoot photos, and in the mirror once more. Even with my best suit I still looked like we got to the Mayan Theater in downtown L.A. right as the show hell. It was the shoulder-length hair and the shabby facial hair. was starting. I took a look around. The Mayan was built so that the They had to go. ceiling, walls, and various other nooks and crannies resemble the inside of a Hollywood version of a Mayan temple. I took a deep breath and headed for the bar. When I got my drink and turned in the direction of the stage, there was a woman dancing and dressed as if she were a female matador (or is it matadora?). Jesus Christ! She was hot. I had the feeling like I’d just walked into a circus sex tent. My perception was off. I hadn’t known what to expect. The stage and the lights and the crowd sitting, sipping on their drinks, surrounded by the façade of the Mayan temple, the girl dancing with her matador’s cape, kicking up a leg, spinning with her chin lifted high. It was almost like ballet, but better. She continued her dance. All the while, I was waiting for her top to drop. Oh yeah, I’d have to say that she was sexy, attractive, mysterious, erotic – a real turn-on. My heart was racing as if a revelation were about to occur, one in which all the world would feel the change. Flowers would grow, dogs would die, games would be won, bells would chime, more dogs would be born, cars drive, and… and I lost that one as I was waiting on her top to drop. It never did. But, good God, she worked the crowd – both men and women – into a frenzy. After the proper media hurdles were dealt with, we found our- selves backstage and being greeted by Michelle Carr, who is both a dancer and the producer of the show. After a few words with her, all of our uncertainties as to the amount of range we could wander backstage were cleared. We had free roam. It would be smooth sailing from here on out. Back stage? No problem. Behind the cur- tain? No problem. What about the dressing room? The girl’s dress- ing room? Not a problem. Just ask before you enter and let them know what you’re doing. Dear God, I now know that there is a heaven. The girls were the kind of girls where you’d want to describe them as having various builds, but you would decide against using “builds.” Something about them came across as various flavors, not builds. Each possessed a style and a demeanor that was all to their own, each intriguing in some hot and dark fashion. My God. There were, of course, other acts, all with themes. Some were based on space, with the dancer onstage in a set-up in a classic sci- ence fiction motif; neon green lights circling the girl like the rings of Saturn. There were babies in strollers, which weren’t babies at all. There was a seven foot tall chicken man. There were French maids and accordion players, all working together in some low- but most likely not. I’d just go to any burlesque club I could find. down orderly fashion. While the Velvet Hammer challenges the new “norm” of beau- And there were pasties. I will give pasties their just due here, at ty, this is not a political rally. It does twist up a nice feminist cock- this moment! tail – with much emphasis on “cock” and “tail.” No, the Velvet Pasties are some of the greatest inventions ever. I have been to Hammer is not a Lilith fair. It is a show, and a show of the highest many a strip joint where the dancers have to wear flesh-colored caliber. Imagine the classic American circus – ring master, clowns, pasties over their nipples. Those, I don’t like. But there is an art to tigers, acrobats – and replace the tigers with women of seamless twirling the breast in the open air in such a way as to invite them to attraction, and all the acrobats are female and all remove their tops, wave in a circular fashion and swing the sparkling tassel of the and the clowns… well the clowns are still clowns. But the ring pasty as it glitters in the stage lights. All of the dancers were well master, instead of a guy in a top hat and a cane, instead of that you learned in the art of pasties twirling. But there was one act that have a dominatrix with a German accent, Miss Astrid, slapping her stood out. I don’t know if it was because it was the hottest act, in rear and rotating her “axis of evil” for the audience, all the while that strangeness way that is the Velvet Hammer, or more so coercing them into working their individual “axis of evil” on each because of the perseverance and lack of concern for what anyone other. If you can put that together then you’re getting close to what may have thought. It was a classic exhibition of the idea that “the the Velvet Hammer is like. show must go on.” It was professionalism. It was rock’n’roll, and it Miss Astrid, combined with the ladies of Russ Myers’ Faster was demonstrated by one of the Velvet Hammer guests of honor. Pussycat, Kill Kill, the Velvet Hammer show girls – Ursulina, Tura Satana is a legend to some. She was the big breasted Valentina Violette, Ming Dynatease, Kitten Deville, Summer Asian girl in Russ Myers Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill. Tura took the Peaches, Bobby Pinz, Maya O’Migh, Vermilion, Scarlett Fever, stage in a kimono while a dude dressed like a burglar – in a black Lola La Cereza, the High Plains Harlot, Madame West, and cap, black clothes, and a black Lone Ranger-type mask – played Princess Kissameecoochie, and my God, the French maids, Bibi the floor tom and cymbals to keep the rhythm for Tura’s swinging and Fifi Poubelle, the names alone conjure up countless stories and of the tassels. The rhythm was a steady, rolling beat as Tura lives that have yet to be told and leave much to be lived. I need a worked the crowd, but then one of the pasties started to fall off. It drink just after calling those names back to mind. was only moments into her performance and the tension rose. I’m in for this one hook, line, and sinker. I’ll be there each Would she drop the pasty? If she did, what would happen? Without chance I can get. It’s not everyday, in many cities, where you can it, she would be twirling her breast tassel-less. Would it be like a see, in your dirty old suit and a new hair cut, a vaudeville-style bur- twin prop running on one propeller? Would her show go out of lesque show, that will leave you with a rejuvenated lust for all fla- control? vors of the female variety, and many fine pictures to boot. The pasty fell off and she picked it back up and put it back in Here’s to hoping you and yours are having a fine 2003. place. Then she danced her way over to the drummer and began to From Cloud Nine, let her tassel hit the cymbal each time it came around, in time to the B.D. Williams beat on the drums. It was almost like a dirty cartoon portraying a beatnik party, what with the burglar outfit and the kimono dress, nakedness, and drumbeat. And I was privy to all this from the side stage, surrounded by other beauties. I was felling good in my dusty old suit and new eight-dollar haircut. How could it get any better? In the darkness behind the curtains, among the ropes and scaf- folding, which was packed into the corners of the stage area, we intermittently snapped photographs and got acquainted with a few of the dancers. Then we made our way down the stairway leading to the basement, and finally to the dressing room itself. We strolled straight into the dressing room. If you enjoy your surroundings to be fifteen to twenty naked women strolling casual- ly around, stretching fishnet stockings over pantiless crotches, bending over to pull on black stiletto boots, topless, and sipping on beers, if you enjoy this, then you either better start dating one of these beauties, get a job that puts you in strange situations (write for some magazine), or become the gay makeup artist who gets to sit with naked women in his face all day. Jesus Christ! The smell of powder and perfume. Women, women, women who love to drive you wild with the workings of their universal talent. Shoes, dresses, makeup, hose, mirrors, bright lights, hairspray, lipstick, and topless women. I need to write that again. Topless women. I know there are some people, both men and women alike, who don’t like adult entertainment, and I’m sure that they have complex reasons for that, but put that aside or turn the page. The Velvet Hammer is burlesque. Burlesque is not something you’re going to catch late night watching Skinamax after the kids are in bed. Burlesque is live and shaking in your face. The Velvet Hammer is a celebration, a party to recognize the beauty of the female form… huh, yeah… it’s about half naked women on stage! The Velvet Hammer crashes down on the modern idea of beau- ty, but it is smooth and sexy. It shows the women in an atavistic way, as a part of American past that has been under-represented in the canon of whatever crap is taught as history. I’d be willing to bet that if this aspect of American history were taught in the schools there wouldn’t be enough teachers to teach the classes. Students would fight to go to class and be schooled in the art of the women of the stage. Hell, I might even go back to school for that. Maybe, KatKatKatKatKat Jetson’sJetson’sJetson’sJetson’sJetson’s PhotoPhotoPhotoPhotoPhoto PagePagePagePagePage MARCIE: There used to be a great little club in Los Angeles held at Fais Do Do called “Milk.” It had an amazing two-year “ping-pong/ ladies/beer” run. Quality live music every week, to boot! On this particular Day of the Dead evening, queer hero rockers, The Need played backing band to a slew of guest singers. In this photo, Marcie of Patsy is “getting her evil on.” Don’t let the look fool you... She’s a sweetheart. But you didn’t hear that from me. Photos of girls with cigarettes are neat. I’m a walking P.S.A.
NICOLE: Nicole of Radio Vago. That’s a tube top on her head. I couldn’t make something like that up. Radio Vago = hot. Dan Monick’s Photo Page
“She says, oh well, let’s go to the drive-in tonight. It’s Saturday night and it’s summertime. Don’t we all want to be young together. Don’t we all want to be young forever...
...she says, oh well, can we go to the lake today? It’s summertime and it’s my only day off. Oh, I only want to have a little fun.”
–“Queen of the Bonfire,” Selby Tigers gloomy for a plausible cover of “Mongoloid” and the cookie monster Please note: If you’re slays the mic, but it is good, punchy thrash that’s fixated on skulls, rotting, an established record and dying. It’s hard not to make a company, and you Locust comparison, but with more metal, more spooky, and less art. Good send us a pre-release for cleaning pop bacteria out of your without all the album ears. They hide their melodies in spools of musical barbed wire, much like art, we’re probably Tragedy. Good, gnarled stuff. –Todd going to throw that (Hungry Ghost) shit away... BASEBALL FURIES: I Hate Your Secret Club: 7” cock gobblers. Fuckin’ rockin’! I lost my concentration the first couple of times I listened to this, but when I finally got it, I wished AFFLICTIONS, THE: my record player had a repeat button. The Peotone: CDEP The three songs on it are all awesome. It Hey, I’m punk enough to know that the was rock‘n’roll on a very fuck you level saxophone does not an unpunk record – well worth getting up to reset the make! (See X-Ray Spex!) And a farfisa needle. –Petite Paquet (Estrus) is, of course, many garage bands’ delight! But these instruments have BLACK MONDAY/ combined here to produce something Ever wonder what it would feel KINGS ROCK: Split CD that is only okay. A lot of the songs Black Monday has been spewing their sound the same. Sorta that slowish like, being that lone sock tumbling barrio brand of greaser punk rock and garage-y feel. I wish everything was a roll for years, and they just keep getting little faster and had a little more energy. around in the dryer at the better and better at it. Jorge’s vocals are Come on! More craziness! I can take it! gritty and melodic, and unlike so many If this were a cereal, it’d be regular laundromat? –Donofthedead other “singers” in the rock and psy- Cheerios. Could someone pass me the chobilly scenes, he can actually carry a sugar, puh-lease? –Maddy unapologetically old, pudgy, ugly and tune that makes the ladies swoon. Rusty (Captain Spazz) ARRIVALS, THE: all suffering from male pattern baldness. Exsenator Orange: CD and Herman (the latter from Los I was all ready to embrace my new As they sing, “Some live by function. Creepers) hammer out the rhythms. And ANCHOR/ BREAKDANCE musical heroes and then I hit the play Some live by greed.” By listening to the Dave’s frenetic fretwork is as lively to VIETNAM: Split: CD button. Um, looking like the fat middle- Arrivals, you just get the feeling that listen to as it is to watch. If this is any Anchor: A lot of guitar wanking in a aged guys in The Full Monty is one indication of what’s to come, Black Helmet-meets-death metal sort of way. every countless note, every countless thing, but to look like that and sound fat beat, every song to pass through their Monday’s upcoming split with Speed The band sounds like it’s just going and middle-aged is another thing entire- Buggy is sure to make a splash. through the motions. Emotionless metal throats in the past twenty or so years ly. It doesn’t start out too bad – mid- was putting stock into this band, to mak- –Money (Split Seven) hardcore. Also a really bad hair metal tempo-ish and a bit workman-like – but cover of Skid Row’s “Youth Gone ing sense of the world through music. then the wheels break off and the whole Think of how much time most bands BLAZING HALEY/ Wild.” Breakdance Vietnam: Man, this thing slides off into the ditch when they LOS CREEPERS: Split: 7” CD went from bad to worse. Average, waste in lieu of making great, original pull out a sappy power ballad that could music. Instead of spending energy on It’s nice having some Blazing Haley on generic, mid-tempo melodicore. I need have been penned by (ugh!) Brett vinyl. Both of their tracks – “Time to to find something to entertain me. I slot jockeying other bands, sucking up Michaels from Poison. I guess it’s kind to radio stations, wasting time on calling Burn” and “Run Away Truck Lamp guess I will go pop that zit on my chin. of funny to hear some guys who look Love” are excellent examples of their –Donofthedead (Triple Crown) up Mt. Dew for sponsorship, it comes like this doing a hair metal style power across that every second, for the jump-started, thick-pistoned take on ballad, but I’d like to hear their stuff Arrivals, it’s the music. That’s how their American roots music that stands a little ANGEL CITY OUTCASTS: from back when they had a little more albums sound. Like complete universes taller than many other pompadour’d 2,000 Pints and hair and fewer chins. And zero power – atmosphere, dramatics, and poignant compatriots. The not-so-great news is Going Strong!: CDEP ballads. They probably tore it up back that both of these tracks have already Like with all catchy oi, you’ve gotta lyrics (one song told from the perspec- then. But as it is now, I’m sorry to tive of a baby). Nothing’s missing. been released on their latest CD, Mas check the lyrics, lest you realize report, these guys seem like they should Chingon. Los Creepers: are okay. They halfway through singing along that Nothing’s flat. The Arrivals are unsung share a crate of viagra with Bob Dole. blue collar powerhouses that have play their instruments well. If you don’t you’re singing “God bless America the –Aphid Peewit (Insurgence) know the title of the song, they repeat Great! Boot to the black man’s face!” So somehow found a way to muscle the density and curiosity of the Pixies and “Man Gone Mad” about twenty times, I went on their website, and I discovered ANGER IN MOTION: they take a load of their sound from the the lyrics to a song called “Popeye in strap it onto a bottle rocket of brass- Reverends and Rednecks: 7” sacked rock. Inventive yet powerful, first several Reverend Horton Heat LPs, Afghanistan.” This song isn’t on the Five tracks of raging, vaguely metallic and they cover ground that’s been drag CDEP, but the lyrics give you a good much like fellow Chicagoans of yore, thrash, recorded thirteen years ago by an Naked Raygun. That’s just the begin- stripped over and over again, down to reason why you’d probably not like this Aussie band I’m assuming is long dead. the forced laughing at the end of the band. The song is about a US soldier in ning. The complexity’s a couple layers Pity, ‘cause it sounds like they were a deep and the songs will grow on you song. I don’t want to get too down on the Middle East. Here we go. “Then he mighty fine band, indeed. I’m hoping them, but when you start to make me came upon a caravan/Trying to get like tree roots. Not apt to let you go they have other stuff out there that’s soon. Ignore the dodgey cover art. think of Gene Vincent with the lament across to Pakistan/When the evil one readily available, ‘cause they are worthy in “Mistakes and Broken Hearts,” I had showed his face/Our hero put him in Ignore the enigmatic title. Buy, sit of considerably more notice. down, crank up, and let something orig- want to hear your soul shattering and his place/Let that be a lesson now/To all –Jimmy Alvarado (Kangaroo) your guitar weeping. Dead souls, barely our enemies on the prowl/When you inal grow all over you. Rock on, moth- erfuckers. –Todd (Thick) coping, you know? It just sounds a little mess with the best the great US/You’ll ANTISCHISM: Self-titled: CD too nostalgic and safe for me, like end up in a world of stress.” First of all, This is a compilation of lots of ASSAILANTS: you’re driving by the accident instead of that last rhyme has to be one of the Antischism seven-inches, split LPs, being in one. –Todd (Split Seven) lamest I’ve read in a long time. (A Hate Machine: 7” demos, and outtakes. I had never lis- Some of the material that came with this “world of stress”? Come on!) And sec- tened to Antischism before, and I really BOILS, THE: ond…well, do I even need to say it? If says this EP is the final statement from liked this CD! But, since I don’t usually this Cerritos band, which is a shame to The Ripping Waters: CDEP this were a cereal, it’d be United We listen to music that sounds like this, I I’m not really sure how or when pirates Stand-Ohs. –Maddy (self-released?) hear, ‘cause these kids had it goin’ on. could not come up with the necessary Sweet mid-tempo hardcore with no dis- invaded oi, but I’ve been noticing a comparisons to obscure bands and cere- cernible metal influence, which is how trend of pirate-influenced songs in some ANGELIC UPSTARTS: als! So, what do I do when I get a polit- we like it best around these parts, and of the latest oi releases. And I don’t Sons of Spartacus: CD ical crusty punk CD for review? Why, some smart/stupid lyrics to boot. Sad to know why I like it, but I like it. Why Now I know these blokes have been call noted crust punk expert, HJ Marcus, not? Isn’t it better to sing along to a around forever, carrying the proud street see you go, guys. –Jimmy Alvarado of course! So, here’s what my friend HJ (Violent Reaction) pirate song than to sing along to, say, punk torch and squashing nazi skin- says: “Antischism rule! That song some geeky kid’s heartbreak, or to sing heads beneath their jack boots whenev- ‘Greedy Bastards,’ is that on there? That along with a dozen consecutive unity er possible, but I don’t know if I’ve ever ASSCHAPEL: self-titled: 7”EP song is seriously one of the best songs Do I hear a double bass and a moog? songs? This new EP by The Boils grabs heard more than a couple of their songs. ever! Hey, if you don’t want that CD, the pirate theme and rocks with it. There But I was elated to see their pictures on Venom meets Charles Bronson meets could you give it to me?” Devo? Well, not quite. Asschapel’s too are five songs, not all of them pirate 72 this disc: they’re –Maddy (Prank) tunes, but all of them are fast, growling, straight-ahead oi songs that are vocally Rollins piece about how the first time he similar to the Stiff Little Fingers (which heard the Stooges’ Raw Power, he was is never a bad thing when it’s done well, working construction and he started and it’s done well here) and musically in throwing 2 x 4s all around the place) but the vein of The Business’s live show what about a record that makes you want (meaning it has all the energy and to smash something, and the first thing rockin’ anthems, but none of The you want to smash is the hi-fi that’s actu- Business’s questionable, slow-down- ally playing the record? Imagine a and-clean-everything-up production val- screamo record that screams about cut- Top 40 7”s ues). –Sean Carswell (Thorpe) ting itself and black blood, black halls, black hearts, blacked-out houses and BOOKS LIE: Weep: CD blacked-out eyes, then quits screaming I’m assuming they’re supposed to be a for a minute while the guitar gets all Quit being a dildo. hardcore band, but they sound more like undistorted and pretty, setting you up for Find yourself a record player. a talentless emo band than anything else. the punch of the screaming going back A decade from now, when they’ve all on, then the screaming goes back on, and Play it often. sold out and got the corporate jobs that sometimes a lady talks while the man is are their birthright, they can pull this screaming and then the lady screams too, outta the box in the back of the garage, and it’s like this constant seesaw These are the show it to their kids, and tell them of a between the quiet setup and the top time when mommy and daddy were anguished yelling and it sure does piss cool. Should work so long as they don’t you off and you wonder, “How come 7”s since ever play it for the little rugrats. –Jimmy they can’t at least scream about some- the last mag. Alvarado ([email protected]) thing happy or funny? I’m certain it’s not physically impossible to scream about BRIEFS/DISTRACTION: meatloafs or beanbag chairs or turtles.” Split: 7” So you’re just about to eject the CD The Briefs are tricky. “Ain’t It the Truth” when a track comes on with the setup Underground Medicine Mailorder, Conneticut is another catchy, bonafide single that music for the background of a rap, continues to, thankfully, blur the line which just tears it, and that’s when you between punk and new wave. Perhaps almost punch the stereo in the face, but 1. FM Knives, Estrogen (Smart Guy) it’s all the travelling in foreign lands you pull up when you remember you still , Heavy Music (Big Neck) they’ve been doing, but they seem more have to listen to Dan Melchior on there. Seger Liberation Army (Vinyl Warning) aware of their Americanism, in a self- That’s what sometimes happens to me, . Exploding Hearts, Teenage Faces aware, openly critical way. Paraphrasing anyway. –Cuss Baxter (Hyperrealist) 4. Saviors, Ruby Gloom (Rapid Pulse) here: “Yeah, we’re stupid as a culture, split (Radio Blast) but we (as a band) know it.” Quoting COFFINBERRY: Self-titled 7” 5. Briefs/Distraction here: “The TV news is nice and dull, but Think mod with vocals that don’t fit, 6. Stitches, Automatic (Vinyl Dog) (Flying Bomb) networks keep us comfortable.” And which doesn’t mean I like one and not 7. Kill-a-watts, Let’s Get High Voltage they can make your toes tap and wonder, the other. I hate them both equally. (TKO) “Well, since they’re on a major, maybe –Megan Pants (Exit Stencil) 8. Stitches, Automatic this song’ll actually make it to the 9. Final Solutions, Eat Shit (Therapeutic) radio.” There’s also an homage to the CONCUBINE FORMING: Gary Glitter’s Eyes (Screaming Apple) movie, A Christmas Story, etching in the Stiff: EP 10. Briefs, matrix space. It’s what Ralphie’s special I can’t believe it’s 2003 (it is, right?) and ring decoded. The Briefs are a pony of I’m listening to a song called “Yo many tricks. The Distraction: I’ve lis- Mama.” Another thing I didn’t expect is tened and listened to them, and the more that it actually sounds a little like Big I do, the more I think of the Stitches. It’s Black. A little punker, but with a similar Disgruntled Mailorder, California the singer’s voice. It’s so like Mike robotic beat. How’s this: I got the 1. Neon King Kong Lohrman’s and all the instruments do the turntable this is playing on in an era , There’s a Party (Vinyl Dog) very simple (and good, but not great) when people still said “yo mama” a fair 2. Lipstick Pickups/Bikini Bumps split (Erectords/G.C.) sweep of stripped-down punk. It’s just amount, and Big Black/Big Neck? Does 3. Briefs/Distraction that the Stitches released a great record that mean I’m drunk? –Cuss Baxter split (Radio Blast) 4. Angry Samoans recently and raised the bar on them- (Big Neck) , Don’t Change (Bad Trip) selves, so The Distraction seem sec- 5. BellRays, Fire on the Moon ondary to that. –Todd (Radio Blast) CYNICS, THE: Living is the (Poptones) 6. Flash Express Best Revenge: CD , Ride the Flash Express (Headline) BURMESE: Live War b/w Screamy, Sonics-influenced garage rock 7. Stitches, Automatic (Vinyl Dog) Treaties of Greed and Filth: 7” with the all-important all-school garage 8. Candy Snatchers/Nashville Pussy Musical brussels sprouts. Do not ingest. instrument: the maracas! Of course, it split (Black Lung) 9. Distraction Feed it to your dog under the table or seems like I can always take my garage , Transmission Ignition (Pelado) hide it under a cushion on the couch rock crazier than it’s given to me (with 10. Marky Ramone, I’ve Got Dee Dee on My Mind when no one’s looking. Not meant for notable exceptions of the Sonics, the (Heavy Drinking Productions) human consumption. –Aphid Peewit Brentwoods, and a few others). This (Scenester Credentials) comes closer to meeting my ever-diffi- cult spazz quotient than ninety percent of CATALINA TIGERSHARK: the garage crap that’s being released ...is Making Poop Jokes a today. If this were a cereal, it’d be Apple Threat Again!: CDR Jacks. Fear not! It doesn’t taste like Sounds like it was recorded in the apples/sound like crappy hipster garage! garage on a boombox. The vocals are (Even though the guys in the band look snotty and the recording reminds me of totally square!) Shake! –Maddy Know Crap Mailorder, Oregon what I may have heard over twenty (Get Hip) 1. Exploding Hearts, Making Teenage Faces years ago. The songs are mid-tempo and (Vinyl Warning) 2. Exploding Hearts are on the poppy side of punk. The mud- D.O.A., Hardcore ’81: CD , Modern Kicks (Pelado) th 3. Spitting Teeth diness of the recording will appeal to the Happy 25 year D.O.A. California’s best , Don’t Believe the Hype! (Havoc) punk purist, while it might irritate oth- Canadian band (or so it seemed during 4. Distraction/Briefs, split (Radio Blast) ers. I want to hear what they sound like the time, since they toured here so once they go into a real studio. It’s hard much), this is D.O.A.’s seminal second 5. The Latin Dogs, Kazaaamo (Blammo) to have an opinion from what I hear. The album with what’s considered the defin- 6. Barse, Council Estate, (Rapid Pulse) potential is there. –Donofthedead itive lineup (no offense to the current 7. The Bomb Pops, Everything Looks Like Her (Catalina Tigershark) one) of Randy Rampage, Dave Gregg, (Rapid Pulse) Joey Shithead, and Chuck Biscuits (who, 8. The Cheeraks, self-titled (Yakisakana) CIRCLE TAKES THE in this loose timeframe drummed for the 9. BBQ, self-titled (Goodbye Boozy) SQUARE: CD Circle Jerks, Black Flag, and Nig Heist – 10. You sometimes read reviews where the furthering the California connections – The Now/The Grout, split (Last Years Youth) reviewer goes on about how the record is then, later, joined Social Distortion and Blod Ser Mere Virkeligt Ud Da Film. so good it makes him or her want to Danzig) has lost nothing since its incep- Illustration from the insert of Amdi Peterson’s Arme’s break shit (I remember reading a Hank tion in ’81. It’s a great hybrid of the Dils’ sabertooth and sickle socialist attack venience that this album is a drumless real band and not the current Dead DEADWEIGHT: coupled to The Avengers frontal assault. work). Problem here is that, lacking the Kennedys Karaoke Fiasco that they’re Half-Wit Anthems: CD (Randy played with the Avengers, too.) quirky songcraft of the former and the pulling off now. The songs are taken Combine the worst excesses and most If that’s no help, think of basic Dead bloody-nosed immediacy of the latter, from four SF-area live shows from 1982 desperate commercial inspirations and Boys, speed it up a little bit without the guy achieves absolutely nothing and 1986. Most of the on-stage banner aspirations of Big Chief, The Red Hot blurring, and you’re on the right track, superlative whatsoever (though he does is cut out, and the sound quality is good, Chili Peppers, Primus, and a slew of just turn down the self-annihilation score a few memorable lines like “we’re so this album is sort of a DK Greatest would-be progressive yo metal bands knob a bit and have the band face wider all just animals...don’t get cocky”). My Hits. It has live versions of “Too Drunk who listened to too much Yes and fancy issues than cocaine and self-mutilation. favorite part is still the (likely uninten- to Fuck,” “Holiday in Cambodia,” themselves to be talented musicians, I know this is a personal problem, but I tional) evoking of the Monkees first “California Über Alles,” “Moon over and you have an idea of how much ran- still hate Led Zeppelin, whom they album in the instance when a refrain of Marin,” “MTV – Get Off the Air,” and cid, diarrhea-covered ass this sucks. cover, but to make up for the injustice of “hey-hey-hey-hey!” in a song laden nine more of your favorite DK songs. –Puckett (Nuttsactor 5) “Communication Breakdown” included with 7th chords almost duplicates a sim- It’s actually pretty good. I don’t know is the Don’t Turn Your Back on ilar passage in “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be where you stand on the whole issue of DEMONICS, THE: Desperate Times 1984 Peel Session. If Another Day.” I’m sure the guy is the other three Dead Kennedys screwing Ritual on the Beach: LP you’ve passed their stuff up before, this thrilled to know that. BEST SONG: Jello Biafra out of all the songs he wrote Tasty, surf-fueled sparklings sprinkled is a gem, from one of the very first “This Is Not the Medway Sound” BEST and suing him for money that they here and there on this Demonics release bands to incorporate and embrace the SONG TITLE: “Hey x 4” FANTASTIC thought he should’ve made and re- with some straight-ahead rock and word “hardcore” and who actively kept AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: This releasing all the old DK albums on a rolling that would most likely be a it from being another stale cartoon. stereophonic microgroove recording is label that claims to be “independent” kickin’ set to catch live. I don’t know if Thumbs up to lifer Joey Keithley, who’s playable on stereophonic and mono but has a history of working with it’s just The Gears fanfuck wriggling label is responsible for this essential phonographs. It cannot become obso- Warner Bros., Enigma, and BMG and inside of me, but the way The Demonics reissue. –Todd (Sudden Death) lete. It will continue to be a source of released early stuff by Ted Nugent. But, opened up their LP with the exclamation outstanding sound reproduction, provid- if none of that bothers you, pick up this “Surf’s up, motherfuckers!” on DAN MELCHIOR: This Is ing the finest stereophonic performance record. –Sean Carswell (Manifesto) “Summoning Neptune” called to mind Not the Medway Sound: LP from any phonograph. Well LA de fuck- the “Surf’s up!” shout on the Gears’ ...i saw this guy live w/full band in a bar ing DA... –Rev. Nørb (Smart Guy) DEAD THINGS: Because “Let’s Go to the Beach.” Intentional, or across the street from where i work last Sometimes You Just Want to not, it’s all fucking great here, as well as year, and couldn’t really make heads nor DAN POTTHAST: Ride Your Bike to the Show: CD their covers of “Aloha Oe” and even tails out of what exactly he was trying to Sweets and Meats: CD I think Dead Things is my new favorite Nikki Corvette’s “Boys Like Me.” By do (although the fact that i don’t remem- These solo releases that Asian Man have everything. I picked up because I liked the way, does Alien Snatch Records ber whom he was opening for should be been releasing lately are killing me! the cover art – a bunch of skeletons rid- have an extraordinary supply of vinyl to a backhanded compliment of sorts). On This release gives the listener the singer ing their bikes with instruments in tow. press records with? Because this fuck- closer inspection, it is my esteemed sup- of MU330 accompanied by acoustic Then I looked at the track list and ing LP has the girth to hold a stuffed position that, regardless of what he is guitar, drums, and organ. I’m wondering thought with songs like “Lemmy Rides Thanksgiving turkey. I know that the TRYING to do, what he HAS DONE, as if I picked this or was this assigned? I a BMX” or “Shovel Fight” I had to pressing plants in Europe usually turn far as i’m concerned, is found a feel like I should be sitting in a check it out. From the first song it out thicker records than here in the midground – (a midlands, if you will) – Starbucks reading Men’s Health while sounds familiar, they acknowledge that states, but this 12” spare tire could do and, thusly, united – the section of the listening to this. I feel soiled. there are parts stolen from other bands, some serious smashin’ damage to some- Venn diagram containing wry, quasi- –Donofthedead (Asian Man) but they totally make it their own. one’s noggin’. Fuck yeah! smartass British songwriter types like Heavily guitar-driven with alternating –Designated Dale (www.aliensnatch.de) Wreckless Eric, John Otway and the DEAD KENNEDYS: male/female vocals and so much fuck- Jazz Butcher with the sector belonging Mutiny on the Bay: LP ing balls! This is easily the best album DESTROY: Discography: CD to unaccompanied Billy Childish mater- This is a live album that was recorded in my review pile this time around. This is the predecessor band to Code 13. ial and the like (may i note for your con- back when the Dead Kennedys were a – Megan Pants (Slave Magazine) Felix of Havoc Records fronted both bands. Destroy was a landmark band out lege rock sensibility to make the whole behind the punks to focus more on their DYSFUNCTION: of the Minneapolis scene during the thing annoying as hell to sit through. “crossover” career and not participate as Wake Up: 3-song CDEP-R early ‘90s. During that period, a new –Jimmy Alvarado (Suburban Justice) much in the punk scene. The history was Three tracks of authentic, homespun, birth of DIY hardcore was igniting due they were one of the fastest bands of home-recorded Russian punk recorded to music becoming so bland and the DISGRUNTLED NATION: their era. Songs like “No Sense,” at the end of 2002, sung in Russian. It’s after effects of the “crossover” scene. Self-titled: 7” “Couch Slouch,” “Reaganomics,” deranged, low-low-low, go lower fi. Bands like Destroy, Drop Dead, Born Some mighty fine work from this “Blockhead” and “Busted” are energiz- Imagine sponge-thwok drums and gui- Against and others of the time jump- Montana band. Tempo changes aplenty, ing today as they were when I first heard tars that sound like they’re played under started their respective scenes and personal lyrics that prove that life in a them when they were first released. The mattress in room from across the street brought together like-minded people to small town still bites the big one, and lyrics were thought-provoking and and the mic chord barely reaches. It play music they wanted to hear. I have subtle, yet knowing, musical references political that challenged many issues of sounds so strange that the stringed to admit that I barely paid attention to to BGK and, of all bands, Journey. One the day. The sheer speed of the music instruments sound like a keyboard at this band during that period. But listen- kick-ass little piece of wax. was unique at the time and was so mind times. And it’s fronted by a guy who ing to it now, I’m the one who missed –Jimmy Alvarado (Disgruntled Nation) blowing that I thought nobody could sounds almost like a cartoon vampire. out on the opportunity to experience it have pushed it to limits like they did. I Know what? I like it. It’s just like vodka firsthand. Hearing music in a historical DISTRACTION, THE: was a devoted fan at that time. I remem- that comes in plastic bottles with the perspective is well and good, but does Calling All Radios: CD ber one small show that they played at hand grip. Not the smoothest going not compare when it is experienced in Remarkably unremarkable pop punk the Cathay de Grande in LA. I think the down, but it’s got a fire all its own and the present. The music on this release that’s a tad catchy, a little snotty, but song list was fifty to seventy-five songs gets the job done. –Todd (Dysfunction does not sound dated and can compete mostly forgettable. Distraction is right – long, and I think they barely played thir- c/o Vladimir Kozlov, Kashirskoye with many of the bands of today. Their don’t I have better things to do than lis- ty-five minutes. The song list was writ- Shosse 132-1-125, 11582 Moscow, mixture of crust, hardcore, and blast ten to this? I can’t wait until I’ve totally ten on a bed sheet that looked like a Russia;
2500 LEFT-HANDED PEOPLE Every single back issue (back to life-type stories, and illustrates them DIE EVERY YEAR USING 1980!) is still available. There’s a in a very cool, remarkably detailed RIGHT-HANDED PRODUCTS new Heroine Sheiks record (though way. And though I really enjoy his (THIS IS NOT A PLACE TO I couldn’t find a review of it because stories, it’s the artwork that makes DUMP YOUR DEAD PIGS), the reviews are arranged by writer the comics worth owning because $1, 5 ½ x 8 ½, xeroxed, 22 pgs. rather than by band). Ringo Starr’s Shawn takes the time to put all the Take a hint from the title: I don’t son plays drums for the Who. windows and bricks into his sky- remember the last time I read so Time’s up. Good shit. –Cuss Baxter scrapers, all of the plaid into his many words that said so little. My (The Big Takeover, 249 Eldridge St. flannel shirts, all of the street lights favorite part is the page and a half of #14, NY, NY 10002-1345; and power lines onto his streets, all reprinted Hemingway. Maybe next
STL 2000: A Year in St. Louis Underground problem was just that I was used to movies Rock, VHS being paced too quickly. I’ve grown accus- Jason Pankoke of MicroFilm wrote a tomed the the rapid fire editing of the music- review of this movie that inspired me to hunt video era where images come and go so quick- down a copy for myself. Shortly before reading ly that you can’t really look at anything. Meyer, Jason’s review, I’d watched a recent movie on the other hand, seems to feel as if no one about an underground rock scene, and the really gives St. Louis a fair chance, so he movie drove me nuts. It was so self-congratu- makes sure that you get enough information to latory and insular, and the kids interviewed give it a chance. And I really appreciate that. seemed so naïve that I started to feel like I For the most part, the bands covered in this needed an anecdote to that film. After reading movie are pretty solid. None of the bands left Jason’s review, I thought I’d found the anec- views. The Creepy Crawl guys are interesting me feeling like I had to rush down to the record dote. I knew that I was holding STL 2000 up to because one of them, Shannon Hill, is preter- store to pick up an album, but I am keeping some pretty high expectations, and I also knew naturally laid back and open minded, and the most of the bands’ names in mind when I flip that part of me felt like the flick didn’t stand a other guy, Jeff Parks, gives the most dead-on through the Razorcake review pile and through chance against my expectations, but I request- description about the difficulties of opening a the seven inch sections of my local record ed a review copy, anyway, and had the video in business yourself that I’ve ever seen. He stores. All of the bands are worth the few min- my VCR within an hour of getting back from describes what it takes to open a venue and utes spent covering them. One curious thing the post office. And, to my surprise, it lived up covers everything from finding a spot to getting about the bands, though, is that Matt Meyer is to my expectations. This is a pretty fucking rad licensing and permits to basic accounting, and in the St. Louis pop-punk band, The Ded Bugs, movie. it’s priceless when he tells you to figure out and Meyer’s film completely ignores his own STL 2000 covers a year of the punk/hard- how much money you’re gonna need and dou- band. Meyer takes the anonymity one step far- core/rockabilly scene in St. Louis. In the spirit ble it, to figure out how much money you ther and pretty much eliminates himself from of making a time capsule, this movie starts and expect to make and cut that in half, and to be the film. With the exception of one bit at the ends at a New Year’s party. In between, we prepared to get screwed because you’re gonna very end, Meyer never lets himself be seen or meet local bands, hipsters, zine guys, writers, get screwed; the key is to just keep from getting heard in the film. He lets the film and the peo- club owners, and disc jockeys. The interviews screwed too badly. It’s been a long time since ple in it speak for themselves. It’s very cover what seems to be a fairly broad cross sec- I’ve seen anyone that honest in an interview. respectable. By the end of the movie, I really tion of the underground music scene in St. Perhaps the most jarring thing about STL admired the tenacity of the bands, the clubs, the Louis. Not everyone interviewed has horribly 2000, though, is the pacing. It’s remarkably fans, and everyone else in the St. Louis music intelligent things to say, but, to filmmaker Matt slow-paced, especially in relation to the music scene. Meyer’s credit, he does get them talking about it covers. In the first few minutes of the movie, I’m so entrenched in punk rock that it’s a variety of topics. Some of the people inter- Meyer films a poorly-attended basement show easy for me to forget that punk rock scenes viewed lament the death of punk rock, some featuring the band Wreckless Angels. The show don’t thrive everywhere in the US. There are so celebrate its vitality, some pine over the loss of is moderately entertaining, but it’s not exactly many good shows and so many good bands in the good old days, some look forward to the what you would call a high-energy set. After LA that I tend to forget that the rest of the world future, and a lot of them have very level-head- about a minute of watching the Wreckless isn’t as privileged as I am here. But I come ed, lucid insights into underground culture. Angels play, I realized that Meyers was going from a small town in Florida where punk rock Two of my personal favorite points were the to stick with them for the entire song. It made barely exists, and I’ve spent years having to interviews with Phil Motion Sickness and the me feel a bit restless. I felt like he should just drive to Orlando to catch snippets of touring two owners of the punk club Creepy Crawl. get on with it. Then, I thought about it more and acts and local bands that just don’t have a Phil’s interview was interesting not only decided that Meyer shouldn’t just get on with it. chance. I tend to forget about that, though. because he explained the madness behind pub- I realized that this was probably the only time I Watching STL 2000 helped me to remember lishing a zine, but because, when he explained was going to watch this band, and I had the what it’s like to struggle to have any kind of the madness, I recognized the look on his face extra two minutes to spend listening to a whole scene at all. It’s good to remember that. It helps as the same look I get on my face when I song. So I relaxed. I listened and I watched the give me perspective. Maybe that’s what I enjoy explain why I drive myself nuts working on moderately entertaining set and I ended up real- most about this film. –Sean Carswell Razorcake. But Phil always seems to have a ly digging the song. At that moment, I decided ($10 ppd. to: Ded Bugs, 318 Stewart, good attitude. It comes through in Motion that the movie wasn’t paced too slowly. The DeSoto, MO 63020) Sickness and it comes through in his inter-